Executive Mansion - Episode 24

Faux Grain Door Finish

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Bob visited local artist Elaine Haviland in her studio in Richmond's elaborately restored Landmark Theater to see how she achieved the painted wood graining finish on the doors. Elaine Haviland is a decorative painter, who works on fine art projects and murals as well as creating the prototype for the flame mahogany faux grain doors at the Executive Mansion. When the mansion was first built in the early 1800s the original doors to the Governor's office and the ladies' parlor were faux finished to look like flame mahogany which was a very exotic wood at the time. Over the years the original faux finish was painted over with white. When the paint was stripped from the doors for this project, Elaine discovered that the wood was scarred where it had been removed with a blow torch during a decorating project in the 1920s or 1930s. Elaine took the following steps to restore the door to the original look. To remove the scarring, the door was sanded smooth and filled, and all the edges were re-squared. A primer coat was applied first followed by two base coats with an oil paint. Elaine selected a tan color for the base coat, as this was the base color for the wood grain that she wanted showing through the glaze. Next came the glazing application. The glaze is a mixed tint straight from the tube combined with an alkyd glazing liquid and linseed oil to produce the right consistency. She used three colors to achieve the tone she wanted applying them one right over the other using the same brush. She started with burnt sienna, followed by burnt umber and then used a small amount of red to bring the mahogany tone into it. To produce the dark tones which you would find in flame mahogany, a darker glaze was feathered into the wet ground. This is the time to step back, which Elaine admitted is difficult, to produce the right effect. To get a realistic appearance, door panels should be painted so that the patterns in the graining face in opposite directions, like matched book ends. Elaine stippled in between the hearts to give it the grainy pit marks you would find in real wood. The door took about ten minutes to dry. Then Elaine used a wet brush and streaked the glazes, almost like doing a tortoise shell effect, which pulled the colors in together. Again, she let the door sit for another minute or so and then brought out her "magic brush". The "magic brush", also known as a badger blender, is made of badger bristles and is incredibly soft. This brush lifts the glazes without scratching into the wet paint. In order to separate the colors but not scratch through, Elaine lightly brushed over the surface alternately in three directions—horizontal, vertical and diagonal—producing the look of wood grain. To achieve the look of an inlay of lighter wood (in this case, holly), Elaine first created a frame effect brushing around the inside edges of panel with burnt sienna. Using the brush she stippled over the frame a bit to create a burled effect in the border. Then using a negative technique—one which takes off rather than applies paint—she crumpling up a plastic produce bag and actually lifted off some of the excess paint breaking up the brush marks enough to lay in her inlay line. To create the inlay line, Elaine lined up one ruler-like wooden stick on the left side of the panel as a guide and then pulled another through the wet glaze exposing a line in the much lighter base coat shade. She repeated this process on the other three edges of the panel. Finally the entire door was overglazed with a darker color glaze. The last step in this fascinating process was applying bowling alley wax to the door with a fine steel wool. Elaine used Briwax. Similar to what happens when you wet a stone, the wax brought out all the different colors in the finish giving the door a rich flame mahogany wood grain look.