Farrow & Ball Paint on Wallpaper – Smudges, Splatters

Farrow & Ball is a British wallpaper and paint manufacturing company. They are unique in that, instead of using ink to print their wallpapers, they use their paints. It is a hand-screened process.

Any type of hand-done work means that there can be human error. (Well, you can have errors with machine-produced goods, too, but here we’re focusing on higher-end, artisan-inspired, hand-crafted goods.)

Anyway, here you can see a few smudges, and a few platters of paint on the wallpaper. All of these are considered typical and normal for a product like this.

While you are looking closely, I encourage you to notice the three-dimensional quality of the ink on the paper. It’s almost as thick as gesso. This gives the paper a subtle dimension, and ensures that every screen will be a tad different from the others.

Flaw of the Day – Smudges / Misprint

Digital Image

The vertical line just in front of my finger is a misprint. In addition, there were regular smudges through every bolt of paper, in the same spot on the pattern design – both obviously printing defects by the manufacturer.

With this busy pattern, none of these defects were very obvious, so I went ahead and hung the wallpaper.

This wallpaper pattern is by York, in their Sure Strip line, and was bought at below retail price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.