How to paint a faux rock panel wall?

Hi Jessie do you want to smooth it out with spackle first or do you just want to paint over the finish and keep the texture?

It will take a little time but filling in the cracks using spackle, a putty knife and then sanding it, isn't difficult and you can easily do it yourself.

Hi Jessie...I just painted a faux brick wall in my kitchen. I primed the wall first and then used an interior paint. One coat of each. Looks great and helped to brighten the room. Anne

Hi, I happen to be a Artist. Drawing than painting was my first love from the time I could hold a pencil or brush, I'm now closing in on 60.

If your trying to hide a faux stone wall, noting going to happen with out a lot of joint compound and sanding. It would be quicker to pull it off or cover it with new sheet rock.

If your trying to make a flat wall look like a stone wall or change color of a faux stone wall that's not hard but will take several layers of paint and dry time between.

One technique to achieve trompe l'oeil ( French for " fool the eye") is dry brushing.

I use it a lot to achieve depth and realism. I'll attempt to add example's of my fin with dry brushing.

In a nutshell, paint your whole rock area black. Determine motar area and tape it off, meaning cover mortar area with tape or masking (rubber product that seals a area so paint can't seep under and can be pealed away later (exspence way for what you are doing) .

Load your paint with some paint and knock or brush out most of the paint, so the brush appears fairly dry and has very little paint loaded on it, so paint when applied is wispy.

You start with your darker colors first than work to lighter colors. Let it dry completely between coats and each coat/ color has Less and less paint. The undertones and thin layers of the paint is what makes it look real.

That and once you remove tape over miter lines, you determine where a shadow and highlights would be and and you add a touch of white or Gray's to add depth.

Lots of layers of color is the key if you me.

Look at your skin, it's not just flesh tone or peach, it's red, brown, blue etc. It's our brains that read and turn all the different colors into one tone or hue that our brains interpet as one flesh tone. I hope that makes sense to you.

Any way goolge or you tube dry brushing or trompe l'oeil or painting faux stone look.

If you want to keep the stone shapes and keep it simple there are also thexture spray paints in your local Lowe's or Home Depot that you can try. They come in blends and single colors and a variety of textures. There is also spray paint for trunks that has texture and multiple or single color sprays. This is a cheap, easy, and quick way to go to get uniformity of color closer to what you want and do a facelift on the wall.

If you don't want it I would skim coat with dry wall mud and then re paint. It would save a lot of time. Or use a texture machine and cover the wall With texture on the walls. Then paint. It doesn't have to cost a fortune. If your wanting to save it then faux painting.