Brief Introduction to Skip Trowel

Posted by Kristin Abraham Jul 28, 2006

I've had a terribly busy week but somehow I still found time to watch some skip troweling and get a quick lesson in the process. It was pretty interesting and very easy and I believe most people can do the technique themselves.

Purchase a pre-mixed wall compound because the consistency is very important and you don't want to worry about making a proper mix on your own.

Then use a trowel to spread the mixture on the wall in a pretty thin coat. You can get too thin but you can also get too thick so begin in an out of the way corner and practice. Once you've spread on the compound take a trowel and drag it gently across the top of the wall, not scraping off all of the compound but you do want to pick up some of it and create interesting visual and textural elements. Work in smaller patches, criss crossing and overlapping sections. You do not want to work in horizontal or vertical or even diagonal rows, this would turn out way to symetrical and you'd get a weird repeating pattern.

Now it's easy to get carried away so step back and take a good look at your work. You'll need to work fairly quickly because the compound does set up in a few minutes but you'll have time to go back and touch spots up or entirely rework a section.

My aunt was doing her bedroom and she was a little unhappy with how "rugged" the initial areas were so she went back when it was almost dry and dragged the trowel across the top, she called it detopographizing the area. But basically she was knocking down the bumps and some sharp spots. This can also be done with sandpaper once the wall has totally dried.

Now this is just a brief explanation as I have never done this work myself, but I believe most people can tackle this project in their own homes and will be thrilled with it once they finish it with a nice rich color wash.