Drawing Faux Brick on a Wall With No Stencil

Maintain Straight Lines

• Use a yard stick or a ruler as the base line for your bricks. Natural brick is slightly uneven and has some variations in mortar thickness, but you must use a straight edge to ensure that your bricks don't angle up or down the wall. Draw the outline of the bricks with light pencil before you paint, stain or otherwise color the faux bricks. Use a ruler to make sure vertical brick lines are perpendicular to the ceiling and floor.

Start at the Top

• Begin drawing faux bricks at the top of the wall and work your way horizontally across the wall, row by row. Since ceilings and floors are often slightly uneven or wavy, you may need to draw a final row that contains some half bricks. Artist Debra Conrad of the Easy Faux Brick website recommends starting at the top so any uneven areas and half-brick drawings will be less obvious at the base of the wall.

Pinky Space

• Allow a space between each faux brick if you want to include grout lines in your design. A space the width of a pencil or your pinky finger should be adequate for the mortar lines. If you plan to use white or gray bricks in your design, the grout lines may be less noticeable. Red and orange bricks typically have visible gray or off-white grout lines. Avoid drawing mortar spaces that exceed 1 inch in width, or the faux bricks will look like they are spaced too far apart.

Transpose

• Use an overhead projector with a brick transparency if you want to trace faux bricks on your wall. Place the projector close enough to the wall so the bricks look their natural size. If you place the projector too close to the wall, the bricks will appear too small. Use a pencil to trace the outline of the faux bricks before you color, paint or fill in the blocks. Make sure the transparency is level and even on the projector to avoid slanted brick lines.