Yellow brick painting advice sought.

[sb67]

Having unsuccessfully tried painting blue brick I started to paint my bridge in the usual red brick fashion. On looking at prototype pics of the area I'm trying to represent, most are London yellow or heavily weathered brown bricks.

I really want to challenge myself and paint something I see and my question is how should I get from this

 

    

 

To this.........  the wall on the left.

 

 

Been wracking my brains for a couple of days and come to some sort of mental block! 

Would I be better off paint over the red bricks completely with a yellow and starting from there? 

Many thanks.

 

[Miss Prism]

I would suggest starting with yellow is definitely not the way. Here's a more common set of colours.

 

 

 

[D6775]

This might help though it is not based on yellow brick but gives you a principle to follow. Maybe a mustardy yellow base and build up with layers of yellowy browns. 

 

Intentio Paint Guide

 

I used it as a basis for the blue brickwork on the arches below and the pub with a more standard red brick.

 

 

[sb67]

Thanks for the replies, that paint guide is helpful. I guess, as you say, the method will be the same but using different colours. I just need to work out which colours to use, I struggle as if a colours says brick yellow then cant get that out of my head when, as in the picture posted by Miss Prism, there is no yellow there. 

I'm not sure what co!ours are there, they look more like stone colours with brown and beige.

In the picture I posted, more like a sandy co!our with browns. 

[Mick Bonwick]

Are you ready to try something different?

 

Consider using artists' pencils. You already look to have the mortar course coloured, so what comes next is the brick faces. To represent yellow brick I'd suggest something like the following set from Faber Castell's Polychromos range:

 

https://www.faber-castell.co.uk/products/Polychromoscolourpencilpalegeraniumlake/110121#color-table

 

A109 Dark Chrome Yellow

A180 Raw Umber

A182 Brown Ochre

A183 Light Yellow Ochre

A283 Dark Chrome Yellow

 

Give your brickwork a coat of matt varnish (or Dullcote, of course) to retain the starting point.

Apply the light yellow ochre to the brick faces of one panel by using the flat edge of the pencil tip (not the point). You will find that it only colours the brick faces. You can then apply other colours over the top on a random selection of other bricks in that panel. This will give you an idea of the colour variations that you can obtain, and by altering the base colour to one of the others and repeating the exercise you will soon see which combination suits best. If it all goes to pot then just remove the mess with a stiff damp brush (I use an old toothbrush) and start again.

 

Here is an example of a test I did that might illustrate the principle. This was for red brick and the test panel is the large one to the right

 

 

The finished result is protected by another coat of your favourite matt varnish.

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

They always looked pretty yellow or a desert sand to me. So it probably depends on the area.

 

This is L&Y (LNWR buildings in the area were often the same).

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/martynhilbert/49719818908/

 

Bank Hall

 

 

 

Jason

[zarniwhoop]

If you are painting (rather than artist's pencils, which sound interesting), I think the only way to get close to many real walls is to mix your own shades. Sometimes, things are easier (Steamport Soutport's example looks like Precision yellow brick, but nothing like the wall you are trying to reproduce).

 

Many 19th century brick walls, particularly around railways, used cheapish bricks of varying shades. But the overall impression of the dominant shade still varies from place to place - last year I drove around the Horsham - Partridge Green area, glancing at the brickwork - towards Horsham the better-quality (not railway) buildings tended to be more orange, elsewhere a lighter red seemed to be the background colour but with a lot of browns.

 

For your wall, I agree about sandy and browns. If you are using enamel, I find that Revell and Humbrol seem to mix ok with each other and are cheap enough (when the shops are open!) to experiment with.

[sb67]

Thanks for the ideas guys. I really like the idea of pencils. I've got some limited watercolour ones so I've had a quick go on the back of the bridge. Where I've been messing about trying other stuff! 

 

 

The top 2 panels are the ones I tried. I've a limited set of colours so I only had a brown, black and a yellow. 

I think it's a matter of getting the colours right more than anything but I wasn't dis-pleased with the result. 

[simon b]

This is a base coat of halfords khaki, then dry brushed humbrol 29 earth brown, then a few light dusts with a matt black spray.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

21 hours ago, sb67 said:

Having unsuccessfully tried painting blue brick

 

 

I hope that hasn't put you off.

I have been dissatisfied with a few 1st attempts at things but the 2nd effort has been much better.

[sb67]

48 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I hope that hasn't put you off.

I have been dissatisfied with a few 1st attempts at things but the 2nd effort has been much better.

 

It hasn't, I will try with something else and I'm having just as much success with the yellow ones!  

[sb67]

I've done a bit of work using a similar range of colours to the pencils, still needs some work though but I feel like I'm getting there.

 

 

 

[D6775]

4 minutes ago, sb67 said:

I've done a bit of work using a similar range of colours to the pencils, still needs some work though but I feel like I'm getting there.

 

 

 

 

All about trial and error. If you mess up you can soon cover it up! Its looking good already though.

[DLT]

I've only ever done red brick, but my method is as follows.

I start by brushing/rubbing cement colour into the mortar courses, and then gradually build up the brick colour by dry-brushing with appropriate colours or mix of colours.  That way you can see it developing, and stop when you think it looks right.  If you overdo it, you can always dry brush with a more faded mix to compensate.

Sorry, I can't advise on what actual colours to use.

Cheers, Dave.

[sb67]

Did some more dry brushing and introduced some more browns into the mix. The photo's aren't good but it's getting there, still needs something though. 

 

 

 

Quick question, what colour would capping stones be with yellow brick? 

 

[Mick Bonwick]

It might be the colour representation on my screen, Steve, but I can't see much yellow or brown in these recent pictures, everything is grey or white.

 

I don't know the answer to your latest question because I don't have access to yellow brick structures, but I'm thinking that they would be grey or brown. Only a guess, though. In your original photograph they are the same colour as the top of the walls - a dirty brown - but that's probably grime.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Mick Bonwick

[Miss Prism]

3 hours ago, sb67 said:

Quick question, what colour would capping stones be with yellow brick? 

 

I don't think so. Normal yellow brick is too porous. Capping stones were in stone, particularly if of a large-ish size, or maybe there were 'engineering yellows' like the hard engineering blues for small (narrow) cappings? Either way, if stone they would be similarly grey-ish to weathered yellow brick.)

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Miss Prism

[sb67]

5 hours ago, Mick Bonwick said:

It might be the colour representation on my screen, Steve, but I can't see much yellow or brown in these recent pictures, everything is grey or white.

 

I don't know the answer to your latest question because I don't have access to yellow brick structures, but I'm thinking that they would be grey or brown. Only a guess, though. In your original photograph they are the same colour as the top of the walls - a dirty brown - but that's probably grime.

 

it does look very grey in the photos but the only colours used were Ochre, Yellow and Brown. I need I add a bit more yellow and darken the brown I think.

[simon b]

1 hour ago, sb67 said:

 

it does look very grey in the photos but the only colours used were Ochre, Yellow and Brown. I need I add a bit more yellow and darken the brown I think.

You could try a thin wash of a sandy color to bring out the mortar courses, then see how the rest looks.

[Miss Prism]

https://network.bfi.org.uk/sites/default/files/FINALSTILL.jpg

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Whitechapel_East_London_line_look_north.JPG

 

[sb67]

Thanks for those photo's Miss Prism, they are just what I need. 

[sb67]

After a bit more drybrushing with Ochre and a mix of Matt Black and Track colour this is probably as far as I'll go except for adding a bit of Mortar in places and some weathering powder.

It probably doesn't look a lot different, could be down to my dodgy lighting I think, but It is a bit more yellow than before.

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by sb67

[Ray Von]

Hi, i tackled yellow brickwork a few years back - here's my tried and trusted method, I used water based Revel Brand paints: 

(The pics are from a blog I did, but the pics were lost somehow during a website update, these are the essential stages.)



Edited January 4, 2021 by Ray Von

[sb67]

Thanks for that "how to" Ray. What was the yellow you used? I used Revell Ochre Brown, lightened with a bit of white. 

[bécasse]

One thing that isn't always obvious from photos (other than close-ups) is that with yellow brickwork the mortar is typically a little darker than the actual brickwork.