The Paint Roller

• Paint rollers make large tasks easy and quick. There are large paint rollers, small paint rollers, short-handled ones and long-handled ones. Each paint roller works for different types of jobs requiring lots of paint in big areas.
  The shape of a paint roller is often cylindrical, with a fibrous material coating. This cylindrical roll is placed on a long or short handle that when pushed, rolls paint onto a flat surface. The fibrous material picks up large quantities of paint from a paint roller tray. The roller is dipped into the main area of the tray where the most paint is held and rolled backwards to smooth out bumps and to coat the whole roller in paint. This is then applied to the surface needing paint.
  
  

History of the Paint Roller

• Norman Breakey created the first paint roller around 1940 in its most basic form. He could not make enough of his first paint roller to make a profit or sell it in large quantities before others came in to claim the invention as their own after making small adjustments to the basic design.
  The first U.S. patent on the paint roller was given to Richard Croxton Adams. He worked for the Sherman-Williams paint company in 1940 and claimed to have designed the paint roller in his basement.
  The controversy around this time and arguments of who invented the paint roller suggest that Breakey could not afford the cost of patents or the fight to prove his was an original design.
  
  

Painting with a Paint Roller

• Any flat surface can be painted with a paint roller. Large surfaces like walls, ceilings and giant canvases are very easy to use paint rollers on. After the roller is filled with paint, it is then applied to the surface. While holding the handle, the roller is then pushed over the flat surface to create wide blocks of spread paint. Smaller paint rollers can be used for small canvases and small areas where a lot of paint coverage is needed.
  Artists may want to make a unique background for a large canvas by using different sized paint rollers. This is extremely useful for patterned backgrounds and abstract work.
  The most common use for the paint roller is for painting inside home walls. The paint roller makes the large coverage of space easier and quicker than a standard size paintbrush does.