American Art Festival San Diego

Its been a long month since last post, much of it preparing for the American Art Festival show we are at right now (I'm writing this courtesy of my new wireless broadband card). Here is a pic of Heather (with Logan in sling) at our booth with my fine art paintings on the walls and Heather's hand forged jewelry displayed in cases att the front.


Thanks to everyone here (so far) for their enthusiasm for these paintings. I showed the first of this series in April at Artwalk in Little Italy and have developed eight new paintings since, six of which are on display in the photo above.

Chalk Video & SDFS Update

I got another great email last week after this year's chalk painting event in Little Italy.

Hi John, I was at the festival last Sunday with a couple of friends and enjoyed watching you paint. I took pictures that day and later thought I'd create a quick movie as a thank you for my friends who took me. Since this wasn't planned, I didn't get any contact info on any of the artists that day. You are the only artist I know how to contact because of the t-shirt you were wearing for sdfinishingschool.com. You are very talented and I enjoyed your art and your websites very much. Since you are in the video I made, I thought you might enjoy seeing it. I wish you every success and hope to see you and your work again some day. Sincerely, Terry Whitley

Check out Terry's really cool video of us all chalk painting at the 2007 Gesso Italiano in San Diego's Little Italy. Thanks, Terry! I always greatly appreciate documentation of me working and I'm sure all of my chalk street painting fans will appreciate it, too.

On another front, I am disappointed to write that the SDFS 2007-2008 school year has been pushed entirely into the 2008 calendar year, despite the certainty of my last set of posts. I confess to having underestimated how much time I would have open for SDFS after Logan's arrival in September coupled with an unexpected surge in service demand the last two months, all while preparing for my presentation with Heather at next month's American Arts Festival at the San Diego Convention Center. Its the first time we've shown together even though we just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary last week. Of course I've been also doing my usual October events in Little Italy and here in Sherman Heights at next weekend's Dia de los Muertos. My apologies to everyone waiting for more info and who thought they had a set schedule for workshops. I need more time to organize my materials and finish up details on both the SDFS site and the various videos of this year's projects, not to mention update my portfolio site as well. Please stay tuned to these posts for developments as they happen and a special offer from Heather for your upcoming holiday shopping. As always, thanks for your support!

Starry Night chalk painting in Little Italy

I had a blast today doing my sixth year of chalk in San Diego's Little Italy for the annual Festa. Thanks to everyone who came out today and shared their thoughts and complements about this painting. Here's the first few photos, I'm going to bed.





Especially thanks to everyone who took pictures of me working for me, I'll be doing a larger presentation using all of your work soon!

Here's a pic of my 2006 piece displayed today:



I will be sure to post when this piece gets installed!

Logan is here! and other events this fall

The biggest news of all this year is the birth of our daughter Logan Annelise on September 18, 2007. Logan was 20" and 7lbs 10oz when she arrived at 7.58 pm.

My amazing wife Heather labored for two hours as the sun set outside our home and Logan was born by candle light in the water, just after dark under the guidance of our awesome midwives Jamin and LaShel.



Anyone keeping score may remember that Hunter's birthday was two days later, here's a cute picture of us



Oh yeah, work stuff:

I will be finally ready to open registration for the new season at the San Diego Finishing School-- the form should be live this Saturday morning October 13, 2007. The limited spots are available first to SDFS newsletter subscribers, so if interested, click here to sign up for that newsletter and priority registration opportunities in the future.

I will be around Little Italy all weekend to talk about the School and chalk on the street at Beech and India as part of Gesso Italiano and the Precious Festa October 13 and 14, 2007.

I will be doing a Day of the Dead altar in Sherman Heights at the end of the month and will be posting exact details next week.

Heather and i are also doing the American Art Festival at the wonderfully convenient San Diego Convention Center Thanksgiving weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I will have more new paintings from the cloud series I showed at Artwalk in Little Italy in the spring (see earlier post), including a large series of small paintings instead of the other way around.

Heather will have much of her custom jewellery there as well as a selection of her popular peace sign and wishbone pendants, both of which make great gifts!

More details, preview of new paintings, and all that new portfolio stuff coming as promised, as soon as I can.

Chalk time again in Little Italy

I'm still working on editing all the info from 2007 so far and its already time for the annual chalk street paintng event in Little Italy here in San Diego. If you go back to the beginning of this blog, the first articles are about last year's project as the Featured Artist of 2006 Corso Degli Artisti.

This year I've been finishing that project up and readying it for permanent outdoor install in Little Italy after display at this year's event October 13 and 14, 2007.

Here's the latest snap (I am working on the final lettering next).



The festival has a new name this year, Gesso Italiano, and a new location on Beech Street, and so I'm switching gears somewhat as well. Instead of my usual Italian Renaissance Masters theme, I'm jumping instead to one of my more modern-day heroes, Vincent Van Gogh and a painting that I still admire no matter how many times I see it as a worn out poster or trendy hand bag embellishment.



More on these projects as they develop and the long promised videos all coming soon. Stay tuned.

Pirate Mural Preview

I've been processing pics and video from many cool projects of 2007 while finishing up materials for the new school year at the San Diego Finishing School. I'm new at this video thing so the next three projects I'm working on are taking more time to edit as I get more involved and experienced with fundamentals.

I just got a nice email about the project I'm closest to finishing, a pirate themed mural framed by some good old fashioned scenic art style rock painting and faux wood grain. This project is special for a few reasons, but one I want to point out here in that it is both focal point (the mural) and backdrop (the faux rock painting) for the client's collection of pirate themed memorabilia.

I'm not satisfied with the video yet, but here's a preview picture from my camera:



Here's the email:

Thanx again for stopping by...It cleaned up with water and sponge... You may quote this as a ref. if you like. Good luck with your new born on the way!

As for testimonial:
John is very knowlegable and talented in his craft. He was very cooperative through out the design stages to the finished work of art. He cares about the quality of his work. We got what we asked for and we recomend John as your artist.

Ron and Mary

Even more cool, here is YouTube post Ron made of the pirate mural developing as I'm actually working. (I will post my mural video here as soon as finished.)Check it out:

Projects in three dimensions

One of the reasons I've been so busy the last few months is a flock of scenic art jobs in three dimensions, utilizing sculpture, texturing, pattern making, mold making and casting.

In contrast to my more usual faux finish and mural/commission paintings jobs,I find these kinds of projects exciting but also exhausting in the details and demanding in the sheer amount of time it takes to follow through all the steps.

That said, the end result is always different, and a little more, than just painting, if only for the extra effort invested.

Here are the first pictures of some of the work I contributed to Currant, the new restaurant by Jonathan Pflueger in the first floor of the Sofia Hotel at 150 West Broadway in downtown San Diego:



I was brought on to the project by designer Diane Roberts and architect Ken Winslow, who also selected artists Marie ___________("currant" treatment on the columns)and Christopher Gay, who created the fabulous main lighting fixture and screens you see to the left in these pictures.



Currant just opened for real over the Labor Day weekend and I am just finishing the last of my contributions to the job (though not because I was running behind schedule.... this time, anyway). I will be posting much more about Currant over the next few weeks, so if you're interested, stay tuned.

Fireplace faux finish: before, after & video

Sometimes a faux finish is a moderator in designing a room, that is to say, instead of making a plain wall into something "wow!", the faux finish modulates something that is already there and doesn't work (and isn't going to be changed) into something that works beautifully.

Over the last few years of painting murals and creating faux finishes in San Diego, I have encountered this situation often when it comes to the existing fireplace and mantel in a home that is being redesignedand remodelled. It starts to get pricey when you talk about removing existing stone or brickwork, not to mention a major inconvenience in terms of the time it takes to strip an existing firebox and surround of its cladding and redo completely.

Faux finishing in this instance is a typically cheaper and much faster makeover, not to mention that you have more control over what the new fireplace will look like in terms of color, value and contribution to the room. Rather than being bound by what stone you can find (or afford), paints, glazes and application techniques can be easily adjusted to accomplish your design goals.

The example detailed below solved exactly this scenario for a living room remodel in a 1970's era home here in San Diego. We've all seen this style of "rock" cladding, both interior and exterior, on homes from this period and, more tragically, on older homes remodelled during this period.



The clients had repainted the room in fresh bright white and were about to install new soft creamy white carpeting to complete their suite of ocean and beach themed furniture and artwork in soft driftwood greys, cream and shots of rich ocean and sky blue. Clearly the garish yellow gold and harshly dark grout lines of the fireplace, which dominates its end of the room, had to go!

Here's a close-up of the surface I had to start with:



I still don't know if this stuff is actual stone or precast concrete or where they got the snappy yellow color, but the bottom line was getting something to stick to this surface that could shift the colors and flavour into the new decor of the room. Additionally, the clients found me right before the scheduled carpet install, so this had to be a one-day job because of calendar, not just cost.

I used a variety of faux techniques on this surface, which I am pleased to detail here for you with the first video of several that I have been creating about my work this summer in preparation for the new programs at the San Diego Finishing School this fall. Check it out:



Here is a larger still of final product; I'm still waiting on a picture from clients with carpet and finishing touches:

Custom textured and painted finish

I've just posted a picture of one of my favorite jobs of the year, a textured and painted finish on a unique master bedroom fireplace/mantel, in the faux finishes section of my portfolio. Because the client gave me such an awesome testimonial, I've put it up on my home page, too. Check it out:



This finish was created by embedding leaf forms through a heavily distressed texture coat. After softening and sealing, the etxture coat is filled with tinited plasters and polished to a glassy shine before waxing and highlighting in a soft metallic gold. I polished the final coat of wax with an auto buffer to leave a glistening, other worldly finish.



This close up gives a great idea of how this finish responds to light and time of day.

These pictures were taken by my friend, professional photographer Mike Brown. Check out his work on Flickr.com.

How to paint with a plastic bag, or classic 2D scenic art

A few weeks ago, I did a "classic" scenic art gig on short notice for the REO Speedwagon set as they began their summer tour at the Del Mar Fair here in San Diego county.

Designer Paul Dexter from Masterworks called me on a Thursday afternoon after finding me online. He was unhappy with the paint treatment on some of the set units for the touring package and asked me if I could bang out some quick changes bewteen load In Saturday morning in Del Mar and the show that evening. So less than forty eight hours later I did a rock & roll break up pattern on a series of step units and platforms, using a wadded up garbage bag dunked in thick black paint and rung out like a mop. By rolling the plastic across fresh white surfaces and then picking it up and dropping it back down in a fresh random shape, I created a slashing leopard print spandex pattern and successfully punched up some very ordinary scenery. Total elapsed time: 3 hours so the stuff could dry in the afternoon sun before soundcheck.

I call this a "classic" scenic gig not only because of short turnaround time and rapid production, but also because we had no rendering, or picture of what the designer wanted. Rather, Paul relied on me to interpret his spoken wishes quickly and effectively and get the job done without hemming, hawing or delay. I'm pleased to say "mission accomplished!" except that my camera batteries were out and I didn't get any pictures to share here. Hopefully Paul will be able to help me out with this soon.

Scenic art: new clarification

It seems that the term "scenic artist" still presents some confusion to people unfamiliar with the term who are new to my work, so I'm writing a quick clarificiation today.

Many people associate the word "scenic" with the word "landscape", and assume that as a scenic artist, I am primarily or exclusively a landscape painter. While much of my mural work and some of my fine art paintings involve landscapes of one kind or another, and while I enjoy painting landscapes and the landscape components of my differnet projects, this is only one facet of the scenic artist's trade.

Most simply put, a scenic artist works on sets, that is, the scenery created for live theater, dance, television and film production, theme park exhibits and rides, casinos, industrial and trade shows, retail outlets, restaurants and any other situation where walls, foors, ceilings, and furnishings serve, in addition to their obvious functions, an entertainment purpose. (Designers and artisans specializing in this work are often now collectively referred to as the the "themed entertainment" business.)

Specifically, scenic artists typically create the final finishes on surfaces and objects created by other artisans. For instance, a scenic would paint the Tuscan mural in an Italian restarant over a wall prepared by carpenters and plasterers, or a distressed/antique paint job on the restaurant's tables and chairs.

A good scenic artist can make drywall look like wood, plywood look like metal, a new table look old, a flat wall look three dimensional, bring the outdoors inside, make a jungle out of a stucco wall, etc. Also, a good scenic works in three dimensions as well, creating textures, reliefs, sculptures or whatever is required to achieve the intended effect.

In addition to drawing and painting, I am well versed in finish carpentry, furniture contruction, wood turning, basic welding and metal fabrication, gilding, moldmaking and casting using plaster, fiber glass and other composite materials.

A good scenic is also part designer, because our job is usually to realize other people's ideas, and often times to create a new way of building or finishing something to make those ideas "come true". In this light, I think it is extremely important for a good scenic to be well versed in art history, the history of architecture, contemporary design and bulding practices, and especially these days, green and environmentally friendly technologies and alternatives to the methods of the past.

While somewhat complicated, I hope this post simplifies the differences between a "scenic artist" and landscape painter, faux finish artist, muralist, painting contractor and many of the other terms commonly used to describe our work, and also why I proudly continue to describe myself as a scenic artist even though the majority of my work these days falls somewhat outside the themed entertainment community.

3D Scenic Art: Marine Corps Command Museum

Its been the busiest six weeks of my career since my last post about my show at May's Ray at Night event. In addition to new mural and faux finish projects in a couple of private residences, I've had two new jobs delving into my broader skill set as a true scenic artist.

In the entertainment world (theater, film, exhibits, etc.), scenic artists not only paint, but sculpt, texture and finish constructions in whatever way called for in the overall design. I generally refer to these parts of the job as "3D" skills (as in, working in three dimensions), contrasted with the "2D" (two dimensional) realm of pure painting.

In May, working with local exhibit company Bang! Creative, I created an elaborate 3D texture for a display about tunnel warfare during the Viet Nam war for the Command Museum at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot here in San Diego.

The "tunnels" were built onsite by exhibits specialist Chuck Archuletta and the finished look designed by Chuck and Sean Laflin at Bang! Creative. I carved and textured over 400 square feet of styrofoam sheet in my studio to resemble the clay and sand soil of the Chu Chi province of Viet Nam as it would look in an excavated section.



The foam was then hardcoated and installed in sections onsite over the tunnel structure.



After filling and blending the seams of the foam pieces into the continuous horizontal bands of soil and rock, I painted the entire surface in the rich reds and purple-browns of the Chu Chi soil.



Chuck then added displays of photographs, text and artifacts from Viet Nam to complete the exhibit.



The Command Museum is a fascinating archive of Marine Corps history from its very beginnings up through the current Iraq conflict, and the tunnel display is just one piece of a new exhibit, an entire hall devoted to the history of USMC participation in the Viet Nam war set to open in July 2007.

John Hiemstra, Ray at Night, Saturday May 12, 2007

Just finished hanging the show with Arie Harrison at Innovative Realty at 3827 30th Street next to Dino's in North Park. Its a bright, modern looking space shared with three other artists.Thanks for staying late, Arie!!

I have 17 paintings hung in the show, including everything at Artwalk except the big one I was working on over the weekend (and is now featured in the new header of my online portfolio www.john-scenic.com thanks (again) to the lovely Sylvia who took the photos.)

Anyway, there are a couple of other cool things hung, including a huge canvas I did in chalk of Van Gogh's "White Roses". If you missed ArtWalk or have never been to Ray at Night, there are several venues in the immediate area featuring art, music, food & drink this Saturday May 12, 2007 from 7pm on. I hope to see you there.

Here is the flyer Arie did up for the show:

New Art Show Open this Saturday May 12, 2007

I will be showing some of the paintings from ArtWalk plus some other good stuff from the studio at a cute little office/gallery space in North Park. We hang the show this Wednesday and the opening is this Saturday May 12 7-10 pm in conjunction with North Park's monthly Ray at Night event.

Ray at Night features over a dozen local venues all with unique shows of art from photography and painting to sculpture and craft, with music, food, wine and more all revolving around Ray Street at University Avenue in North Park, home to more than a few intersting coffee shops, bars and restaurants.

My work will be shown at Innovative Realty, 3827 30th Street at University, around the corner from Ray Street. I hope to see you there.

Thank you

Its been a busy week since last weekend's ArtWalk, and even though now I have even more good stuff to write about (without having caught up from before Artwalk, I just want to say one thing: Thank you.

Thanks to eveyone who came out to Little Italy last weekend and checked out my booth, checked out what what I was doing, and specially to those who gave feedback, ideas, comments, and honest reactions. I have been energised this week from your energetic and overwhelmingly positive feedback-- and I am incredibly grateful to you all.

For those who didn't make it this year, and for those who might have wanted a picture but didn't have a camera, below is a picture of me working on one of my new fine art paintings for my agent Tom Pergola:



This picture is courtesy of the lovely Sylvia, my "photographer of the day" on Sunday--thanks, Sylvia!!

First Update of Spring 2007

Its been a busy winter since my last e-mail update, with several new exciting developments both professional and personal. I have been fortunate to have had some fantastic contracting opportunities creating some unique faux finishes in a few gorgeous homes here in San Diego, with a couple of fun mural projects coming this summer. If you haven't been to my site in a while, check out the new streamlined www.john-scenic.com (launched a few weeks ago) featuring some of this new work as well as regular RSS updates from my blog handpaintedmuralsfauxfinishwalls.blogspot.com. I started the blog in order to write more easily about different aspects of what I'm doing with custom handpainted murals, faux finishes, and my fine and applied art projects as well post pictures of different projects and processes that don't fit anywhere on my site. Its also allowed me to answer questions I've received via e-mail at greater length and in more detail and share both questions and responses with a larger audience. Today I want to invite everyone to this weekend's ArtWalk event in Little Italy, where I will have a booth (#786) for the third year. This year I'll be showing all new fine art paintings I've been developing with my agent, Tom Pergola. Signing with Tom is one of the past winter's events I am really excited about, especially since Tom recently secured my first art publishing contract for the new paintings. I will write about the details later, but here is the most recent version of the first painting in the series that started it all: I will be showing this painting and two others from this series this weekend at ArtWalk, as well as some smaller skyscapes, one really large painting, and the beginnings of a new series of mixed media paintings that have evolved out of some of the more elaborate faux finish projects I have been doing. There is a lot more news on the professional side that will have to wait until later posts (I have to get down to the studio now....), but I do want to share one more important event in our creative development here, which is the confirmed arrrival of our second child, a little girl, due this September 21st (yes, the day after Hunter's birthday). This is the first official announcement now that Heather has cleared the first trimester with flying colors. I have also started a MySpace page, muralssandiego, to write and post pictures of more personal stuff for friends and family (like pics from our recent vacation in Kauai, coming soon). Check it out if you have a chance, and check the blog for further updates about my fine art, prints when they become available, custom mural and faux finish work.

San Diego Finishing School Update

Today I'm getting ready to start a new series of jobs onsite after some time devoted just to Heather and Hunter and our house. One of the things I love about my business model is that every week is different (unless the job is very large).

Frequent change is good for me on many levels. Today I was able to appreciate a wider perspective on things (one I have to put on hold when doing specific tasks), which let me know that in the face of growing demand for my services, I've spread myself a little thin.

So I've decided, despite a very successful first six months that saw 6 new students study at the School and built two new partnerships with local painting contractors, in fact, due to overwhelming demand for my services, that I will not be accepting any more students until this fall.

There are a few reasons for this.

One is business growth: when I began booking contract mural and faux finish job two months (and more) in advance, it occurred to me that splitting the studio into two functions (both teaching and contracting) might be tough. After doing a couple of refinishing projects in the studio as well, I decided it was almost impossible.

Along the same lines, I have had some exciting developments with my fine art recently, which I hope to announce "officially" by this month's ArtWalk event in San Diego's Little Italy, Booth #786.

The other big thing that happened is that I learned a lot: about what people are really looking for in a learning experience, about what people need to succeed in the business of faux finishing and mural painting, and how I can improve the design of my offerings at the San Diego Finishing School to be able to help people even more effectively

So of course I want to make all these improvments now, and if you've been checking in on the Finishing School web site recently, you'll have noticed I got started on the upgrade and then stalled; there is just too much going on right now. The new ideas for class organization and collaboration services for contractors will have to wait to develop until the summer, as will the planned scheduled workshops in trompe l'oeil drawing and mural painting at the heart of a third local business partnership I look forward to announcing soon as well.

I posted a condensed version of these thoughts on the site today and want to repeat here the most important part of the message: THANK YOU to everyone who made the first six months of the San Diego Finishing School such a success and such an exciting time. (and please stay in touch through this blog for most current updates!)

More Trompe L'oeil

While flipping through travel pictures this past week in research for more new fine art paintings (which I hope to be ready for ArtWalk at the end of April), I came across a couple of classic examples pertinent to my last entry about the differences between "faux" and "trompe l'oeil" and how they can me mixed.



Note the detailed marble treatment of the painted column ("faux") to match the real marble column on the right. Then notice how the painted light and shadows convince you of the three dimensionality of the column ("trompe l'oeil").

Trompe l'oeil vs. Faux

I received a couple of inquiries about the Point Loma project I did with Chism Brothers Painting that I described as both "trompe l'oeil" and "faux stone" and what the difference is between trompe l'oeil painting and faux finishing and how one project could be both. So here's a clarification (I hope):

Typically, "faux finish" describes the process of making a surface look like something it really isn't using paint, stain and the like. There are several examples of this in the painted finishessection of my portfolio site www.john-scenic.com, but the most recent and convenient example is in my last post about the Olivenhain project I did with Chism Brothers.

One of the finishes for that project was done on the baseboards and mouldings surrounding the windows and doors in the family room. Using a five step process, I painted these paint-grade white mouldings to look like the honey colored wood used on the fireplace mantel and crown mouldings.



In this picture, the crown moulding at the ceiling is real wood with a honey colored stain. The mouldings around the windows were originally painted white, and I painted them to look like the same wood as the crown. This is a "faux finish": the mouldings are real, but they are painted to look like something (stained hardwood) they really are not.

"Trompe l'oeil" is a French expression that translates as "to fool the eye", and while a faux finish like the one above fools the eye, "trompe l'oeil" is typically reserved for painting that convinces the viewer that something is there that really is not there, like a window or doorway drawn in accurate perspective so that it seems three dimensional. The accuracy of the drawing and the faithfulness of the painting to how the subject matter would look in reality is critical to being "trompe l'oeil" rather than merely decorative painting.

Here is an example of architectural trompe l'oeil from the custom murals section of my site.



The window is "built" like the real windows in the rest of the room, i.e., with the same proportions, same mouldings, etc. but it is drawn and painted on a wall that has no real window. The "view" mimics the real trees, fence, etc. that are outside the house and that you would see if the window was real. And it is drawn in a mechanically accurate perspective, so that it appears to the eye three dimensionally just as it would if it were really there.

Getting back to the Point Loma project then, I use both terms to describe that finish because I used both techniques to create the stone blocks on a blank wall.



Each block was measured and taped off and made to look like stone with paint, i.e., "faux painted". Then highlight and shadows were painted to correlate to how the blocks would look in the light of the room (both natural (daytime) & artificial (at night)) if they were three dimensional, in this case, with a 1/4" bevel on all four sides of each block. This is the "trompe l'oeil" component: look again at the picture and remember that the light fixture is mounted to a wall that is completely flat in reality. The stone blocks you see are rendered entirely in paint, both the stone texture (faux) and the three dimensional block (trompe l'oeil).

Working with Professionals

The Olivenhain project I just worked on with Chism Brothers Painting wasn't the same kind of collaboration as our Point Loma faux stone project, but I was reminded once again how nice it is to work with fellow professionals who have the same eye and understanding for detail.

Project manager James Becker and his crew prepared the family room where I did a suite of painted faux finishes on the walls and mouldings (as well as a large freestanding cabinet), and I was near ecstatic that they took the time to properly caulk all the gaps between wall and moulding, thoroughly prime and paint so that my finishes came out clean and even from edge to edge.



Its an old saying that a great paint job is 80% preparation, but it is especially true when it comes to faux finish painting. As an experienced licensed painting contractor, I can do all of this prep work myself, and in past jobs I have done most of it so it would be done to my specifications-- even when working with other painting contractors, I've run into hassles where someone else's standards are not up to mine, and what someone else calls "ready" I call "insufficient".

Now if you have never worked with glazed finishes (the basis of most "faux" finishes), you wouldn't have the same need for the same level of preparation. I teach this to all of my beginners at the San Diego Finishing School, because insufficient prep can ruin the most perfect faux finishing technique, especially at the edges (where one surface/finish stops and another begins). The edge is always where a faux finish gives up the power of its illusion if not done right-- I liken it to the follow through of your golf or tennis swing. Imagine how frustrating it is to follow through properly (after years of practice!) only to have your work fall short because of poor preparation that someone else was paid to take care of for you. It has happened to me more than once, which is why for a period of time, I did all my own prep.

But if you have ever investigated hiring a quality faux finish artist, you know we're not cheap, and in terms of business, it is difficult sometimes to explain to a client why they're paying top dollar for what appears to be entry level work. Which brings me back to why I am so happy to have established a professional relationship with Chism Brothers Painting. While they aren't cheap either, they are more cost effective when it comes to preparatory work than I am and they do it as well (or better) than I do because they understand why it is important and necessary to do it right the first time. Which means that our clients get the best value available in San Diego when it comes to truly artistic custom painting and faux finishing, from the very beginning of a job through to the very end.

Trompe l'oeil faux stone

This week I'm working on a very pretty home in the Olivenhain part of Encinitas. It is my second gig partnering with Chism Brothers Painting, an award winning San Diego custom painting contractor.

We were introduced on the faux finish job in Point Loma that occupied my winter, where we created a fabulous trompe l'oeil stone block effect in the spectacular three story foyer of a historic home looking over San Diego Bay towards downtown. The home is rich in architectural detail, gorgeous wood and metalwork but with vast plain white walls it felt unfinished, despite being built some seventy years ago.



I designed this finish to visually support the rich colors of the furnishings and to bring a sense of architectural grandeur to the walls in support of the original details.





This was also a job for the San Diego Finishing School, as I needed to train two assistants to work on the job with me in order to get done in a reasonable amount of calendar time. Working with Chism Brothers on this job was a thorough success. I was able to teach the technique to Victor and William of the crew led by project manager James Becker and together we were able to complete the project in complete sections around the clients' holiday gatherings. This trompe l'oeil faux finish completely transforms the space in a historically acccurate and respectful way, getting more warmth out of the woodwork, more grace out of the metalwork while pulling the room together from top to bottom.

New Work, New Site, New Season

Its been a busy winter of production since I last updated this blog, with a couple of excellent faux finish projects recently completed in addition to new painting students at the San Diego Finishing School, new working alliances with some fellow San Diego custom painting contractors-- there's been so much going on I haven't had time to write.

So I'm going to get caught up a little this month while people get interested in this year's Artwalk here in San Diego's Little Italy, usually the beginning of my "season" for meeting new people, showing new work, and seeking out new opportunities.

This year I'm not sure what art to show or how much portfolio of recent custom mural & faux finish painting to display, and I would also like to share some of what's been going on with the first class of students at the San Diego Finishing School, though technically I'm supposed to be showing and selling my fine art only, which leads me to the idea of doing prints (for the first time) of one of my fine art paintings, so as to have more accessible prices for the Artwalk audience....

This at least gives me a good place to start then with the new work. This is one of the new paintngs I'm developing with my agent, Tom Pergola, entitled "Firenze #2". The original is 30" wide x 40" tall, painted in acrylic on canvas. You can see the full size image on the fine art page of my portfolio site, john-scenic.com



(Tom is only representing my fine art; if you are interested in commissioning a custom mural project or set of unique faux finishes, please contact me directly.)

This paintng is part of a series based on the last twenty years of rigorous investigation into light, shade and shadow as the revealers of form, and rooted in my aesthetic homeland of (and travels in) Italy. Its also the first painting I think might make a quality image in reproduction (i.e., giclee, lithograph, etc.)

I would welcome any opinions (pro or con) about making prints of this, or any comments or opinions about printmaking in general. Please e-mail me directly at muralssandiego@john-scenic.com if you have something to contribute; I'm always very grateful for your honest opinions.