Decorative Painting and Tole Painting Supplies

What, Exactly, is Tole Painting? Good question! The term “tole” is French by origin, and is a word that is used to describe enameled or lacquered metal ware (sometimes gilded). The word “tole” can also mean board, tray or table. The history of tole painting dates back to eighteenth century France.

At the time, schools of art would take on apprentices, who would be trained either to decorate pottery or furniture using one stroke to make a bird, scroll, leaf, flower, or some other design. Using paint brushes that were all ready loaded with multiple colors of paint, this method allowed for the fast decorative painting on various consumer goods. Classical items, like Spode pottery or Chippendale furniture, were decorated in this fashion. Another popular item that was painted using this method was tea trays (recall that the term tole also refers to “tray”). Around the same time, “Jappaned” ware become very popular in England and Europe. Jappaned ware was simply glossy black tea trays made from tin. English artisans didn’t like the popularity of these imports, and began to produce their own black enameled goods, including tea trays, tea caddies and tea pots that were painted in what became known as the tole method.

Boxes for Decoration and Crafts		Craft Acrylics		Decorative Painting Mediums		Faux Finishes
Finishes and Coatings		Floor Cloth Canvas

This Week's Featured Products in Decorative and Tole Painting

	Ampersand Gessobord Shadow Boxes This solid wood art Gessobord shadow box is pre-primed with premium gesso on the inside. Each box is 2" deep, so they're great for dioramas, installations, and three-dimensional painting. Shadow Boxes are also archival and accept all types of faux paints and finishes. Kids can place a few of their favorite things inside that relate to a book they're studying or hobbies they love. For more great room accents, custom paint the shadow box to house a special piece of memorabilia or place candles inside.
	Golden Acrylic Glaze These ready-to-use, easy-to-blend, acrylic, water-based colors can be used for color washing, stippling, ragging, sponging, faux finishing, and marbling. Golden Glazes allow greater open time than typical acrylics for glazing and blending techniques. Average working time is up to 45 minutes, depending on technique and relative humidity. They are compatible with all Golden water-based paints and mediums. Cleans with soapy water.
	Fredrix Floor Cloth Canvas Fredrix Floor Cloth Canvas is ideal for stenciling and decorative painting. It's made of heavy 12 oz cotton duck, double-primed on one side, and single-primed on the other side, with white acrylic primer. It has acid-free sizing.

The traditional tole method prefers oil paint, and oil paint remains the medium of choice. In tole painting, two or more colors are loaded onto a brush in order to complete a design. Some folks refer to tole painting as decorative painting or simply as one-stroke painting. With tole painting in modern times, it is quite rare to see gilding, although it was extremely popular to see a tole design with gilding up until the late nineteenth century.