The oldest discovered bricks were made from shaped mud.
The size and shape of bricks lend themselves to the rectangular shape of a house. Whether you paint brick houses to use as bookends or doorstops, you can let your creativity shine through with personalization. For example, you can paint the house you currently live in or one you only imagine.
Materials
Materials required for painting houses on bricks include: a brick with no holes, soap and water for cleaning the brick; idea generators for patterns, such as magazines, the Internet, or books; tracing and transfer paper for transferring your pattern to the brick; newspaper to protect your work surface; and painting supplies, such as acrylic craft paint in various colors, paintbrushes, and clear matte spray varnish.
Preparation
The first step is preparing the brick. Wash the brick well with mild, soapy water, scrubbing with a wire brush if necessary, to remove any dirt. Let dry overnight. When dry, paint the entire surface of the brick with a base coat of white or off-white. The base coat helps the other colors adhere and show up well. Allow the brick to dry completely before proceeding.
Design
Next, find a pattern for your house design. Look in house magazines, books or on the Internet. When you find a picture of a house that you like, or a composite of parts from various houses, use the tracing paper to trace the outline of house features onto the brick. You can also draw a house freehand onto your brick with a pencil. The design can be drawn with the brick on the horizontal, for a rectangular house, or on the vertical for a row or apartment house. Add anything that you would like on your house, for example, add a garage, shingles, fences, flowers, window boxes, curtains in the windows, shutters and downspouts.
Painting
Once your house is drawn onto the white brick, start by painting the major features. If you want the house exterior to be anything other than white, paint that first. Then, paint the doors, windows and roof. Once the major features are finished, you can add more detail. For example, you can use gray lines to indicate wood siding, bricks, stones or roof shingles, which can be square, rectangular, rounded or rough-edged like cedar shingles. Next, add shading to make the house brick appear more three-dimensional, for example, under the windows and the roofline. Then, highlight major features with a thin line of black paint. Finally, add decoration to your house. For example, you could paint flowers and bushes or a dog beside the front door, or you could paint a cat sitting on the windowsill. After the painting is complete and dry, spray the brick with the varnish to seal and protect it. Let dry. To use your painted brick as a doorstop or bookend, protect the surfaces it will rest on by cutting a piece of felt to fit the bottom and gluing in place.
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