Busy December

The Frame Maker has kept me so busy since my last post that Christmas blew by and 2009 is the day after tomorrow.

The upside is my wife Heather made a beautiful Christmas holiday for all of us at home. We had beautiful wonderful food on the 24th, 25th and 26th including my favorite german chocolate cake, the first time Heather's ever made it at home. (It was awesome and didn't last 24 hours!)

Anyway, here's some end of the year follow up and detailing before 2009 is underway. First, it was fun to see this picture of my Ocean Abstract piece at the San Diego Coastkeeper Ocean Gala in a recent copy of 944 San Diego.


Photo: Brian Terry from 944.com/san diego.

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Ocean Abstract #3 for SD Coastkeeper

Here's a pic of the finished piece in its custom frame at The Frame Maker shop yesterday.



The final layers of varnish, plaster and wax mute the bright colors I started with on the recycled wood lengths (see last post), but still allow them to glow through the more opaque bits of glaze. I'm glad I made enough "raw materials" for more of these so i can work out a few things that occurred to me since its completion earlier this week.

New Ocean Abstract for SD Coastkeeper

If you've looked at the fine art pages of my online portfolio, you may recall this piece, "Ocean Abstract #1".



Created from plasters, wax and other materials from arsenal as a faux finish artist. I've developed a few other paintings out of this ideas of industrial, textural materials and the endless horizon-line division and interplay between ocean and sky.

One of these pieces was inspired by a fit of shop cleaning and recycling of unused materials at The Frame Maker, San Diego's premier custom framer, where I am now the general manager. Faced with a bin full of old rippings and cutoffs from our custom molding and construction endeavors, I began to consider all the different surfaces, grains and sizes of maple, ash, pine and basswood assembled there, and how differently they would take color, varnish and polish.

The long strips spoke "horizon" to me, and the piece was under way, utilizing only waste materials from The Frame Maker, and leftover paints, varnishes and wax from my shop.

This seemed a logical choice to donate to the annual gala and fundraiser for the San Diego Coastkeeper chapter this weekend, given their mission of removal of manmade debris and repair of manmade damage to our beaches and coasts.

Here are some progress pix of "Ocean Abstract#3".

Trompe L'oeil Chalk Painting: Little Italy Festa 2008

Here's two views of the finished chalk painting of Saint Domenic I did over the weekend for the "Gesso Italiano" part of the annual Little Italy Festa here in San Diego.





Hunter came down to chalk with me again on Sunday:

Chalk Painting photos from Little Italy Festa

Johm Hiemstra, Scenic Artist, originally uploaded by photoman1552.

Check out this gorgeous photo of me chalking yesterday-- I am eternally grateful to Robert of Rancho Santa Fe Photography for posting taking the time to get this shot of me laying down the picture frame pattern in chalk from an original pounce pattern.

Little Italy chalk 2008: Saturday pix

Here's the first pictures from Gesso Italiana 2008, the annual chalk street painting festival, happening this weekend in Little Italy, San Diego.


renderings in the studio


first things


developing background


face of Saint Domenic


working with my assistant, Hunter


end of day Saturday


Raul

Chalk Painting in Little Italy this weekend

I've been so busy I forgot to post here until now that, yes, I am doing chalk painting again this year in Little Italy as part of the annual Little Italy Festa here in San Diego.

Starting today (sorry for late notice)around ten am, the street painting starts and finishes tomorrow, Sunday, as part of the Festa, which draws over 100,000 people to the neighborhood.



Because we moved since last year's starry night painting (above), I can walk down to paint from my house, which well suits both my urban and green design aesthetics, especially when you consider that Little Italy has been both mine and Heather's favorite neighborhood in San Diego since we moved here in 1999.

Here's a pic of one of my favorite chalk pieces, Michelangelo from 2003:

If you are wondering what happened to my 2006 chalk installation piece, check back in a few weeks for long story and series of pix.

If you're looking for the next posts on Currant or Lucky D's, I'll be back at them next week, along with pix of this weekend.

Currant in San Diego Home and Garden

When I titled my last post "back to the restaurants" plural, I wasn't just talking about this summer's faux finishing work @ Lucky D's near the ballpark in San Diego's "East Village".

San Diego Home & Garden magazine just ran a feature in their September issue about San Diego's "growing sophistication" in restaurant & nightclub design and one of their stellar examples is Currant, the restaurant in downtown San Diego I worked on last summer-- here is my previous post about Currant from last September.

Here's the article cover and page featuring Currant from the actual magazine.





I will post clearer pictures of actual project in next post.

Back to the restaurants.....

September was a busy month for me and The Frame Maker, too, with much to report on many fronts.

Not only did I finally finish the trompe l'oeil children's circus mural that has dominated these posts all summer, my new friend Dave Egan finally opened the doors at his new bar Lucky D's, my other faux and trompe l'oeil painting project this summer here in San Diego.

I have a lot of good pictures of the progress of this job I will put up here, and I will start by expanding on my earlier posts on Lucky D's.

First here is an "in-between" shot of the faux painted brick corner.



You can also see some of the steps in the stencil work we used to create the painted wall paper effect, even clearer in the next two shots of the main part of the wall.





These pictures also reveal my secret weapon on this particular project, one of my new students, Coral, who worked on the stencil application of this painted finish. I met Coral and fellow painter Heather Diemand this spring-- Lucky D's was our first training project together.

Here's a shot of these two working on this finish with me this summer.



This last pic and the next one of yours truly were taken by very talented friend Mike Brown, who has documented a few of my projects for me now.



While Mike has also created magnificent digital images of my fine art painting for giclee printing purposes, his real work with the camera reaches far beyond that. Look for Mike's work in the San Diego edition of 944 and on his website at www.mikebrownportfolio.com.

Circus Room Trompe L'oeil

I'll put up some more shots of all details of this room when I get the real photos taken, but for now here's a shot of completed trompe l'oeil circus panel opposite our circus wagon desk (scroll down for recent posts on this project).

Circus Room Trompe L'oeil Pictures

I'm going to finish off the children's room circus trompe l'oeil this week at long last. I have been juggling in another set of design and art production work for Lucky D's Bar & Grill, which will have cool pictures of its own coming soon.

The circus room is almost done, I put most of the finishing touches on today.

But first, these are pics from earlier this month, from beginning to about midway through detailing the trompe l'oeil centerpiece of the room. In the entertainment production industry, this would be called the "hero wall".







This painting is directly across from the cabinet of earlier circus room posts. Here is the same point in mural development shot from other end of the room:



More pictures this week before I start on Lucky D updates.

Child's Desk: Circus Theme Room pt.2

Here is the first of several coming pictures of finished child's desk and cabinet for the children's circus theme room I've been working on this summer.



My new gig at The Frame Maker has kept me burning the candle at all three ends while I finish this room along with work on my other major project of the year, Lucky D's, in San Diego's East Village two blocks from Petco Park. More pix soon....

Child's Desk: Circus Theme Room

Okay, here are the first pictures of the actual desk and bookshelf unit coming to life from the drawings and design featured in the last post.

Del delivered the case in component parts to the jobsite. Paint grade furniture components typically utilize a mix of materials and surfaces for cost effectiveness, which means that thorough prep is just as important on a paint grade job as for a clear or translucent finish job. Fortunately, Chism Brothers handled this job expertly for us-- thank you, Victor!


Top half of desk/bookcase unit after prep and base
by Victor from Chism Brothers Painting.

The parts were snowy clean and fresh when I began working on them to look weathered and worn-- just the way it goes sometimes, I suppose. The first step was to add on a few dimensional pieces of my own.


Three dimensional detail pieces applied to face of bookcase,
monkey sold separately in later post.

After assembling the entire unit in place in the room, I primed and based the add-ons and touched up the handling marks. The next step would be to paint in the ornament fresh and bright.


Laying in the painted ornament base colors.

Once complete, this is also the last step before getting to age it all down and knock it around a little, so it feels like a real old painted circus wagon. In the background of this picture you can see the final aging of the circus tent wall finish; the painted finish of the cabinet will ultimately fit into that same look.

Circus Room Children's Furniture Component

If you've been following either of the faux painting projects I've been writing about on this blog, or looked at the different blogs I've been writing for The Frame Maker, you know I've got a lot of stuff in motion at the same time right now.

Much like this time last year, when I had several projects going at once including my contributions to Currant, I've been crazy busy but documenting everything as I go for teaching and reference purposes.

Unlike last year, I'm actually getting useful stuff published online and connecting dots with a lot of different and interesting people through my marketing and sales work at The Frame Maker (more on that next week)instead of just working away up in a lift or in the studio all the time.

That said, one of the most interesting people I've been fortunate enough to meet and work with this year is San Diego woodworker Del Cover . Together we designed a children's desk and bookcase unit for the circus room I've been writing about since May, along with Rancho Santa Fe designer Sandra Osborn.

Here's the concept sketch I did for the visual look of the piece after Del, Sandra and I planned out the functions and dimensions in the space.



Here's a detail sketch I made for Del of themed fascia piece and ornament. This top detail is removable so that down the road, the unit can be refinished to fit into a more adult decor.



My inspiration for detailing this piece came from the concept of a circus wagon and a little online research for specifics. My gratitude to the Dover Public Library in Dover, New Hampshire for the having the following picture up on their website, which became our specific design reference for cabinet composition.



So how did it turn out?

Check out the next few posts to find out.

Definitely trompe l'oeil painting!

Finished up the faux painted brick finish component of the Lucky D's project that I introduced in the previous post.

Since 3 people in the first day commented that they didn't know this wall was "actually" brick, I can claim that "trompe l'oeil painting" definitely wins as the right description for this project (since it means "to fool the eye").



Look again, the brick wall to the right of the seam in the picture is actual brick. (The seam is the corner where the actual brick wall meets the new sheetrock wall.) The brick between the seam on the right and the green "wallpaper" on the left is painted on flat sheetrock.

The "wallpaper" is painted on the same surface. It is the same finish we utilized in the office, with a larger repeat of the pattern adjusted for larger wall. More on wallpaper and more pics in next few posts.

Faux painting or trompe l'oeil painting?

Here's another place where "faux" and "trompe l'oeil" start to mean the same thing. This component of the design I'm working on right now at Lucky D's, a new bar in San Diego's East Village, needs the original exterior brick wall of an historic building to "wrap" around onto to a new sheetrock wall. The basecoat (two color wet blend) is visible at the bottom of the picture; the "bricks" have only been laid on in one coat of glaze so far. Here's me on the lift detailing the next row. More pictures of larger wall coming this week.

Circus Mural Room Pictures

Here's the latest pictures from the children's room I'm doing in Pt. Loma right now with the circus theme:







I'll get going on the really good trompe l'oeil part tomorrow, stay tuned for more photos.

New Faux Painting Work

Here's pix from another faux finish/ decorative painting job I'm working on right now for a restaurant in downtown San Diego.



The design is to reference a traditional almost Victorian style and feel, monogrammed of course with most significant initial (in this case, "D"). You can the pattern more clearly in this picture of the sample:



This finish is done in acrylic glazes and original stencils on fresh sheetrock walls in the restaurant office. We will utilize the same finish in the main bar area -- with a twist, of course. More photos coming as project develops.

Circus mural begins...

... and I already like it!!

Check out pix from first day of work: