The French word strie which means "streaked", is a negative technique, faux finish created by dragging off the glaze with a brush. This finish has the appearance of linen when done in a creamy white color, hence it is often called "stretched linen".
Linen strie being a negative technique, requires expeditious and efficient work habits in order to keep a wet edge. Easily done by a two person crew, it can also be done by one person using the right glaze and with an organized approach.
I use an alkyd glaze with this technique
With most negative techniques you will find that oil (alkyd) glaze will give you the most working time. A china bristle wallpaper smoother works well for this technique.You will probably need a smaller brush to get into smaller areas. A flogger works well for dragging. If you need a tiny brush for a sliver of a wall nest to a door jamb or window casing, a chip brush will work for this. I use BIN primer as my base coat.
The Technique
After the room is base coated, apply the glaze with a short nap, lint free roller cover in a 4' wide x 8' high (assuming you are working a room with an 8' ceiling), and immediately begin to drag the glaze. Start at the top of the wall and drag down to the mid way point. Then start at the bottom and drag up to join up at the mid way point. To summarize you drag down, then drag up, one or two brush widths at a time. Don't drag off the whole 4' wide swath of glaze you put down, leave an untouched edge of 4" or so, this will allow for better blending as you join up the next 4' x 8' section. Continue working this way down to the end of the wall. Do not stop in the middle of the wall for anything. Finish the wall from end to end, then take your coffee break.
Softening and Overglazing
You should be able to execute this technique flawlessly on short walls and half walls, such as below a chair rail. On larger walls, if you don't achieve the desirable result, if your blends didn't blend well or whatever the reason, you can overglaze this technique by ragging on a fairly transparent wash in the same color or a bit lighter (or both) and this will break up the lines and camouflage any defects and add a bit of variety.
Stretched Linen / Strie
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If you are doing a light pastel strie, you will probably use just plain white BIN without any tint as your base coat. Your glaze color will probably be deeper than you think, because once it is dragged out over the white background it will appear pretty light. Do a sample board to test your color choice before dragging out a whole room. You will need to "ink" your brushes by dragging out a sample board or something similar before using each of them or they will wipe too cleanly on the first pass
