How to Paint Flames on Walls

Typical wallpaper and conventional wall paints are not for every taste. If your taste in home decor expands beyond the things that are commercially available, you might have to take matters into your own hands and freehand some artwork onto your walls. If flames and tongues of fire are your style, here's how you can paint flames on your walls.

Things You'll Need

• Sponge
• Bucket
• Mild soap, such as Dr. Bronner's
• Pencil
• Paint brushes
• Orange paint
• Yellow paint
• Red paint

Instructions

1. Wash the walls with a sponge and a bucket of warm sudsy water. This will allow the painted flames to adhere to the walls for years to come.

2. 

   Draw flame shapes on your walls with a pencil. Do this on all of the walls that you plan to paint with flames. Start at the floor or baseboards, and extend the wisps up about halfway up the wall. If you need to, find a picture or item with flames on it to use as a rough guide to shape your tongues of fire.

3. 

   Paint the flames shapes with yellow paint. Do this for all of the flames, then wait a few hours to allow the paint to dry.

4. 

   Paint a strip of orange paint an inch or two from the outer edge of the yellow paint. Your end result should be a narrow strip of yellow, a strip of orange and the yellow filling. This does not have to be perfect, so don't obsess if your strips of orange go crooked. Real flames are never uniform or straight, so imperfection will work to your advantage here. Allow this orange paint to dry for a few hours before moving on to the next step.

5. 

   Paint on top of the outer strip of yellow with red paint using a narrow paint brush with firm bristles. Again, don't worry about it if you make a few mistakes. Allow the red paint to dry completely.

6. Follow up by touching up any flaws that are really bothering you. Use a fine-tipped paint brush and the necessary shade of paint.