Painting - paint technique for exterior brick

We have a brick house built in 1954. The brick isn't very attractive and I am thinking of painting it. I saw a painted brick house when we were house hunting (don't remember where) that I liked it. Because of the neighborhood I don't think it was a particularly old house. It was painted white and in places red and blue showed through. It gave the house an old and charming look. The paint was not peeling, just looked aged. Is anyone familiar with this?

Thanks

try this in an incospicuos area of the brick wall.prime with white primer say an area 5 foot by 5 foot.then put a coat of white paint on.then paint a few bricks red a few blue,this may take a few coats to get them up to a rich color covering white.then put your last coat of white on covering everything.see if you like how the red and blue bleed through.if it seems like to much only put 1 coat of the red and blue on possible even thinned out with some water to dull it more.if after the last coat of white you feel the red and blue are not bleeding through enough then apply the last coat of white painting around these areas.then paint the red and blue areas with some thinned white paint to give less coverage and help the red and blue bleed through.experiment with the mentioned ideas.