What is paint tattooing?

The far back wall of this kitchen features a faux painting
technique called tattooing, which was used to define the
dining area. 

Paint tattooing is a faux painting technique that is an artful way to give your walls ay eyecatching design that can be an accent to your decor or set a part of the room apart from the rest.

Tattooing involves using a high quality stencil in a repeating pattern to add a second, contrasting or complimentary color to a wall once it has been painted with a base color. Tattooing can add a small delight or unexpected visual treat to a space.

The artful design in this photo was created using a Benjamin Moore Wall Tattoo, a new generation, high quality stencil that the company recently added to its product lineup. The design team applied it to a single wall that defines the area for a casual dining “nook” adjacent to a modern open kitchen. The “Portico” pattern is a dense ornamentation of classic curlicue quatrefoils that also tricks the eye into reading it as a contemporary graphic grid. Covering every inch, it creates the illusion of ceramic tiles or wallpaper, highly decorative and detailed, but far more affordable. It was achieved with a strong contrast of a deep green/blue Night Train 1567 over a Vellum base coat.

The technique and special applications are all explained in a new free booklet available at Benjamin Moore retailers nationwide called, Colors for Your Home.

Visit www.benjaminmoore.com to see Colors for Your Home. Each of the suggested18 hues is animated to provide in-depth information on the color and its application in the corresponding rooms that illustrate them. Additionally, to find out more about the other decorating resources featured in the room photos, just click on the image. The Web site also is the exclusive source for purchasing the new “Portico” Wall Tattoo, $44.99; and, it’s where you’ll find a locator for the Benjamin Moore retailer nearest you plus a full range of Benjamin Moore color selection tools, including Colors for Your Home.

To read about hot paint colors for 2009, click here.