How Plastic Wrap Can Help You Recreate This Antique Painting Style Like A Professional

Mottled and textured walls are one of the best ways to give spaces an old-world feel, whether it's a rustic rural cottage vibe or the look of a Spanish villa. While techniques like lime washing and plastering walls can be beautiful and timeless, they can also be expensive to achieve. There is, however, a cool way to get similar results by using an everyday household item—plastic wrap!

The technique known as frottage, meaning "rub," is a time-honored practice made famous by the Surrealists, who used it in collages and mixed media work to stunning effect. Frottage effects were created by applying materials like plastic or paper bags, fabric, and lace to paint once it was on the canvas or paper, manipulating it to achieve desired effects with glazes or other colors of paint. The results are a worn and textured look that rendered an antiqued look and personality to even the newest paint jobs.

While faux painting effects for a finish are not new, dating back to the ancient world and the French trompe l'oeil trends of the 18th century, the recent decades have brought waxing and waning popularity for textured walls. While sponge painting reached a new height in the 1990s and early 2000s, many criticize it as a very dated look today. Using a technique like frottage is more subtle and stylish, offering many possibilities to customize it to your room.

After you have applied your main wall color, use wrinkled plastic wrap or other materials to dab the finish after you've applied the glaze to remove some of it. You can also dip the wrap in the glaze to apply it. Each application approach will achieve slightly different results, so it's best to experiment off the wall or in a small section first. The frottage effect will produce a mottled effect that has a lot of texture and visual interest, all for very little cost beyond your basic painting supplies.

While plastic wrap is perhaps one of the most commonly available materials to achieve a frottage effect, it's not the only one you may already have in your home. Like the Surrealists, you can use all manner of materials to create texture on your walls when using a glaze, including plastic or paper bags, burlap, lace, and any material that has an interesting or unique texture. You can also use newsprint or magazine pages, which will leave behind some of the ink for an even more antiqued look tinged with black.

While many use a lighter or darker glaze over their base color to achieve a more subtle effect, you can also get bolder and try using a glaze that's either a complementary or contrasting shade to your base. For a glam look, you can also use more than two colors for extra depth and dimension, including a gold glaze to add a touch of shimmer and patina to any color.