How to Create a Mottled Wall
There’s something about a mottled wall. Mottles created with subtlety can give a wall depth— a depth that melds well with architecture of a certain kind. An early client once requested that we create for her the ‘perfect mottled wall’– that was to be the entire project. Since then, we’ve often been approached to create these beautifully undone walls in homes and even the odd office around India. Our journey of learning and unlearning the art of the mottled wall has been a long one and we thought that it would be a good idea this week to share our knowledge with you. If you follow these steps, you should be able to create your very own, perfectly- imperfect mottled wall quite easily!
You will need: an old cloth, a roller, some water, 2 shades of paint from the same colour, a neutral shade of paint.
Paint your samples onto the wall. Let them dry and then make your final choices
Apply a base coat of neutral paint- we chose white here. Then apply the main coat of paint with a roller and allow it to dry. We simply rough ran the roller over the wall leaving some patches of white exposed
Wet your cloth/rag and wring it out. Then dip the rag into the lighter shade of paint. Twist the rag or bunch it up and dab or streak it across the surface until you get an effect you like. This takes some practice. You could could add another colour over the first two after they’ve dried.
To smoothen out hard lines or mistakes, you can run another damp, clean rag over the paint before it dries to create the desired finish. Rinse and wring out the rag when it becomes saturated with paint.
Once you’ve completed all the walls, let the paint dry. Images: Devra, Udaipur
