Painting brick walls

[Sweet pea]

Hi I need some advice on what colour red or brown I need to paint my model brick wall. The reason why I ask is because my last wall I attempted was too red even after a grey mortar wash.

Any advice will be great.

[Right Away]

Hi Kevin. It can be really useful to stand back and study the colours of various brickwork "in the flesh" as it were. The most prominent colour on many walls can be quite deceptive. Atmospheric polution, smoke, rain and algae etc all have a profound effect on the overall appearance and what might initially be considered RED becomes a kaleidescope of hues. 

 

Lay down a base colour for sure but then graduate weathering tones of greys, browns and greens to effect. Practice on some spare plastic or card in order to see how far to go, less can definitely be more in this instance - and make sure to keep the effect random.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Right Away

[Sweet pea]

16 minutes ago, Right Away said:

Hi Kevin. It can be really useful to stand back and study the colours of various brickwork "in the flesh" as it were. The most prominent colour on many walls can be quite deceptive. Atmospheric polution, smoke, rain and algae etc all have a profound effect on the overall appearance and what might initially be considered RED becomes a kaleidescope of hues. 

 

Lay down a base colour for sure but then graduate weathering tones of greys, browns and greens to effect. Practice on some spare plastic or card in order to see how far to go, less can definitely be more in this instance - and make sure to keep the effect random.

Thanks for the reply most helpful.

[Siberian Snooper]

After priming, I pick out some bricks or part bricks in brown or grey and then build up the colour in thin washes, with some variation to avoid a uniform finish. 

 

 

[Karhedron]

I use acrylic paints and I found a mix of a fairly bright orange and a darkish brown actually gave the best finish for "red" bricks. Trying to work from a straight red gave the same problems you described. I then added a mortar wash to tone it down a bit. Here is the finished effect.

 

[RexAshton]

I've always used water colour pencils since being shown the results by Ken Ball. It's a lot easier than it might look and only uses four or five colours. It also has the advantage that if you don't like it you can always wipe it off with a damp cloth and start again. Once you're happy fix it with matt varnish. The station entrance shown was built with Slaters Platikard but I've used it on Wills as well. The terrace at the back is Metcalfe so ignore that.

I prepared a set of basic instructions for a club member some time ago. I'm happy to send them if anyone is interested.

Edited August 10, 2019 by RexAshton
Typo

[teaky]

I think it is hard to beat Peterkern23's technique for brickwork.  Have a look at this example.

[Barclay]

I've always felt that the traditional red brick is a lot more orange than red and have used some surprisingly bright oranges for brick, together with other shades, duller brick red/orange colours. A wash of creamy grey for mortar tones it down, even though it gets wiped off the surface. Then multiple washes of dilute black and grey for weathering. There are many methods of course....

[Mark Forrest]

Here's a link to a brick wall I painted a while ago that I was reasonably pleased with.

A few posts later there is a list of the colours I used.

 

Hope that helps.