The Decorative Finish I.

Ragging and sponging.

I went off to college intending to be a theater major and hoping to do a lot of acting to prepare for my New York City debut. When my advisor filled out my class schedule he enrolled me in Stagecraft 101 and then asked if I would need to work while in school. When I said that I would he hired me to be the student assistant in the university scene shop helping to build and paint scenery. The designer who ran the shop was delighted to find that I had studied painting in high school and that I had an aptitude for scenic painting. During my two semesters in the shop he taught me all of the scenic painting techniques ...wood graining, marbling, spattering, sponging and ragging...etc ..and promised me that if I majored in scenic design he would guarantee that I would design at least one of the school plays my senior year.

As I did not want to be a designer I left the university and went to Miami to attend acting classes at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. Because my resume listed my work in the college scene shop the theater received a special waiver from the United Scenic Artists in New York for me to be the resident scenic artist. If I had known then what I later learned about that union, USA, (It was a closed shop.) I should have demanded an apprentice card. That would have cushioned my financial transition to NYC. As it was after six months back stage at the Grove I ended up being the resident designer. I was asked to return the next year for the full season. But even though I might have been fooling them with my natural aptitude, limited resume, and lack of education...I didn’t fool myself. And so I went to New York anyway and eventually ended up as a set decorator in the film industry. A set decorator does not paint, he shops.

At the end of my working days in the 1990’s I lived in the mountains of Pennsylvania and made a living once again doing decorative painting and murals. All of this is my way of saying that when it comes to a painted wall, I know what I am looking at ...more or less.

To my surprise there are a number buildings facades here in Oaxaca that have decorative finishes It surprises me because I wonder how they will address the vandalism of delinquents with spray cans...which seems rather epidemic here. But as my Buddhist advisor so many times advised me: that is not my concern.

Ragging and sponging are two similar decorative painting techniques but which result in two different finishes. Ragging gives you wrinkles and sponging gives you spots. In both the glaze can be applied in limited areas and then blotted out or they can be applied directly to the properly prepared undercoat. Blotting out works best with oil based paints. Latex is best applied with the rag or sponge.

In both techniques the objective is to avoid repeated patterns which result from holding the sponge or rag in the same position relative to the wall. As the glaze is applied both must be turned for each pat making a series of overlapping paint marks without repetitions. ( These are good wrist exercises.)

Both also benefit from having two or more sponged or ragged glazing coats one over the other. Usually I would address the base painted wall and lay in a sponged or ragged drift across the wall of darker glaze and lighter glaze. I would then do an even coat of dark, a coat of light, and a final coat of the base color.. This avoids the all over pattern look of discounted wallpaper. Although many clients wanted an even all over effect I often said to them: If you want the wall to appear to be custom painted, let’s make it look custom painted...in a subtle way, of course.

When you see either of these techniques in one color over the base and looking as if it had been rubber stamped in the same repetitive way, you know that it was a DIY project. It indeed looks sponged but it doesn’t look decorative. When in doubt, call a professional.

I offer the orange over white as a poor example of sponging, the yellow over white, which photographs green over blue in the shade, as a better example and the burnt sienna as the best although stepping back to view the entire wall I see too many poor overlaps connecting the worked areas. As of the moment I have not yet found a wall with a ragged finish.