Know Your Faux and Your Faux Finisher

Glaze

A glaze changes the color cast or texture of the surface.
Drying time depends on the amount of medium used in the glaze;
a higher ratio of medium to paint produces a very thin, transparent glaze and and increases your open time...which in faux finishing is considered your wet edge. this allows a finisher to have more time to manipulate their color on the wall.
A decorative artist uses many tools to apply thier glazes,
some conventional and other so unconventional they are some times kept secret.
more conventional methods of application are... brushes, rollers, rags, or sponges.
The desired effect of the faux finish depends on how your
faux finisher manipulates his desired tools.
Glaze finishes usually mimic a texture and are always smooth to the touch.

Scumble is a technique similar to glazing, except that the coating is opaque. It is normally quite difficult to identify if a painter has used 'scumble' on his or her work.

Faux Marbre...Marbleizing or faux marbling is used to make walls and furniture look like real marble. This can be done using either plaster or glaze techniques.

Faux Bois...pronounced Foe Bwa (French for "fake wood") is the time honored French art of recreating wood grains using alternative media. In our case, wood graining on walls or other surfaces with paint and glazes. The Faux Bois technique can be done on any surface, as long as the it's smooth, primed and base coated. faux bois is often used to imitate exotic or hard-to-find wood varieties.

Graining is the practice of imitating woodgrain on a non-wood surface in order to increase that surface's aesthetic appeal. Graining was common in the 19th century, as people were keen on imitating hard, expensive woods by applying a superficial layer of paint onto soft, inexpensive woods. Graining can be accomplished using either rudimentary tools or highly specialized graining tools. A specialized thick brush used for graining is often called a mottler. It is carried out in layers, with the first layer being a base, and then a second layer applied later, today usually by means of a sponge. During the 19th century, however, brushes were more commonly used. Graining can also be applied on bricks and brass, as is more common today.

Color wash is a free-form finish that creates subtle variations of color using multiple hues of glaze blended together with a paint brush.

Strie, from the French word meaning "stripe" or "streak", is a glazing technique that creates soft thin streaks of color using a paint brush. It is a technique often used to simulate fabrics such as linen and denim.

Rag painting or ragging is a glazing technique using twisted or bunched up rags to create a textural pattern.

Distressing in the decorative arts is the activity of making a piece of furniture or object appear aged and older, and there are many methods to produce an appearance of age and wear. Distressing is viewed as a refinishing technique although it is the opposite of finishing in a traditional sense. In distressing, the object's finish is intentionally destroyed or manipulated to look less than perfect, such as with sandpaper or paint stripper. For example, the artisan often removes some but not all of the paint, leaving proof of several layers of paint speckled over wood grain underneath. This becomes the "finished" piece.

Antiquing is a more involved form of distressing where the artisan intends to not only age a piece, but also create an antique appearance.

In addition to distressing the finish, the artisan may reapply historical paint colors, antique-like faux finish and crackle vanishes. They might also apply period accent details, such as antique knobs on dresser drawers. Several methods involve glazes in which colors blend into crevices to give an antique appearance. The antiquing process is time-consuming and normally requires many steps to obtain the appearance of an aged and worn finish.