Luciano,

"Cal" is very common everywhere in Mexico but I guess only a few people knows the right way to apply it otherwise it won't stick to the wall or it will be staining anything that touch the "painted wall"...

Make sure to get some good advices on that before doing it.
I always recommed not to paint bricks once is an earth product and naturally colored so it has its own beauty.

There's a lot of ways to add a personnal touch and shadow to a wall with bricks.

Hope to be helpful.

Thank you for your comment. I intend to use blocks for the outside walls and bricks for the inside walls, but by themselves they don't look very good. I want the look of the old style Mexican houses and as far as I know that's the only way to do it; "painting" with cement and then paint on some "Cal." I'm open to anything that mimics the look I want.

Luciano

I would say that one of the best ceilings for the style that you are looking for is called "Boveda de Cañon" meaning Vaulted Canyon Ceiling and is made out nothing else but bricks lay down together so they will hold one to another, it's a very trick job and needs to be done for someone that specializes on them, but when it's done the inner feeling is way different than a regular ceiling...here's a pictures with an example for that:
http://houzz.com/photos/406954
Look the use of brick in ceiling, walls have been made out of brick with a gypsum plaster on top of it that can be painted any color or even white for contrast.