A color wash is a popular technique in faux painting

Faux painting

Faux painting or faux finishing are terms used to describe a wide range of decorative painting techniques. The naming comes from the French word faux, meaning false, as these techniques started as a form of replicating materials such as marble and wood with paint, but has subsequently come to...

 using paint

Paint

Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...

 thinned out with glaze

Glaze (painting technique)

Glazes can change the chroma, value, hue and texture of a surface. Drying time will depend on the amount and type of paint medium used in the glaze. The medium, base, or vehicle is the mixture to which the dry pigment is added...

to create a subtle wash of color over walls or other surfaces.

Color washing is an easy and forgiving form of faux finishing often used by beginners, but perfected by professional finishers. It was historically created with oil-based products because of the long drying time, but today's environmental and health conscious companies are producing user-friendly water based glazes. Color washing can be done in any color of paint and is generally applied with brushes over a solid paint color, using long sweeping strokes to meld the glaze colors together.