Art on Walls - A lovely workshop with SCIB

Was privileged to have been invited to a very interesting workshop with SCIB Paints - The Egyptian extension of Asian Paints in India.

Thanks to Mr. Kulkarni and his wife a few of us were offered the opportunity to have the secrets of wall painting demystified.

The Workshop trainer - Mrs Nafisa was really excellent and knew her subject very well. She has been a Consultant and Designer for the villas of the rich and famous of Egypt.

Normally this workshop has been conducted for painters in the business (of wall painting) in Arabic. This was her first experience of training in English to a bunch of women who had no technical knowledge of the process. For me at least, all I know about painting a wall - is looking at a palette of colours and deciding which colour and finish I want. The painter and the paint company then figure out all the technical details. In India, you leave the entire process of painting to the experts. Concept of paint your own walls does not exist yet.

I learnt so much at this workshop.

The basics are that you can use SCIB Paints on walls, wood or metal. All you have to do is prepare the base first, so that any of the paints can be used on any surface later on. How you prepare the base depends on the material (plaster/wood/ceramic/metal)

Preparation is key. Depending on the material the steps would include filling the gaps, smoothing rough edges, primers and sealcoats etc.

This workshop was not so much about the preparation of surfaces but on the many lovely effects one can get on these surfaces using different kinds of paints and techniques.

Paints can be either water based or oil based. Water based paints dry quickly and need to be worked on within 15 minutes. Oil paints take about a day to dry and can hence be worked on more slowly.

In the water based paints, SCIB offers a variety of suede, metallic, pearl and radiance finishes. The finishes are exactly as their name suggests. The metallic finishes are available in gold and copper and really look good when highlighting the walls.

Using regular paintbrushes, a trovel, a piece of cloth and common household sponges, we learnt at least 12 different techniques.

Now if we ladies can only convince our husbands and landlords/landladies to let us unleash our creativity on a couple of walls :)