Hi Leanne,
Our company has done quite a bit of woodgraining. What we do is to find a color in the wood that seems to be the lighter or base shade. Paint your piece that color. Then use a glaze or thinned waterbased stain and a chip brush to create the graining. The piece should then be sealed. Hope this helps...we have a website called walls with an attitude.com if you'd like more ideas. Good luck with your project.

Well, a bottle of lovely red wine was involved! I selected a base color that I thought would be good to replicate the richness of the real wood we were using in the cabinetry (it blends much better in real life than in the glare of my camera flash). Then I used a thinned water-based glaze over that. I taped off the "panels" and the highlighted and shaded areas with painters tape. The taping was the most tedious part. At first I didn't care for the look, on a small wall not in the photo, but I realized that the more I did the better it all looked. As I became more confident, my client's offer of a glass of wine was accepted. She even took a turn on one of the panels. It consumed most of a Saturday, we enjoyed the wine, and I stayed for a nice dinner afterward. Good clients are a blessing in this business!

lol...wine is always good!