Fake A Luxury Malachite Finish With One Simple Paint Technique

Learning different painting methods can save you money and create the looks you want on your walls and beyond. With a little practice, you can master home painting techniques that mimic the look of high-end finishes such as malachite. A gemstone whose emerald and mint green swirls have been turning heads for centuries, malachite was prized in ancient Egypt and Greece. Today, travelers often admire it in St. Petersburg, Russia, where it lines columns in St. Isaac Cathedral and fireplaces in Yusupov Palace. There are several ways to achieve this luxurious look on a fireplace, a table, or another piece of furniture. One of the easiest involves applying tinted acrylic glaze with a few different tools.

To give this method a try, you'll need Polyvine Acrylic Universal Colourant or another high-quality product for tinting water-based glazes. Consider purchasing blue and yellow to create a dark green, plus white and brown to make lighter and darker shades. You'll also need a clear glaze with lots of shine. One option is the Modern Masters Decorative Painter's Acrylic Tintable Glaze. Then, gather your tools for glaze application: a small piece of cardboard, a toothbrush, a stippling brush, and fitch brushes such as those in the Faithfull Round Fitch Brush Set. If you're upgrading wood furniture you already have into faux malachite, sand it and add a few coats of primer before painting it. Sand again after each but the final coat of primer. To make your piece look especially gem-like, add a base coat of clear glaze. After that, you're ready to create a palette of sumptuous greens.

To create malachite's dark, emerald-esque green, squirt a few drops of the blue and yellow tints into a bowl of clear glaze, then stir. Incorporate brown or more blue to darken the hue if needed. Once you're happy with the color, use a fitch brush to paint this glaze onto your primed surface. After that, cover the entire surface with texture. To make indented dots, use your stippling brush like a stamp, quickly pressing its bristles into the glaze. Then, grab your cardboard and slowly scrape the glaze in an irregular wave pattern. This mimics malachite's wavy concentric rings and creates contrasting light greens.

Want to add definition to your shapes? Dip a fitch brush in your dark green glaze and trace the edges of the rings. Afterward, mix up a lighter shade of green and outline the dark green you used to emphasize each ring's border. For a finishing touch, wet a toothbrush with dark green glaze and brush a finger across it, splattering tiny dots on the entire painting. This detail helps your faux malachite look realistic. Complete the look and protect your work with a coat of sealant. If you're not sealing the surface after you're done, you could be forgetting an essential step when painting your furniture.