Monday, October 13, 2008

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.

trompe l'oeil picture frame finished view chalk street painting festival San Diego Little Italy


trompe l'oeil chalk picture frame street painting festival San Diego Little Italy


Hunter came down to chalk with me again on Sunday:

the artist and his son street painting festival San Diego Little Italy


Chalk Painting photos from Little Italy Festa

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.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

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.

rendderings for Saint Domenic chalk painting
renderings in the studio

first steps in creating chalk street painting
first things

developing background of St. Domenic chalk painting
developing background

close up face of Saint Domenic chalk painting
face of Saint Domenic

Hunter and John working together in Little Italy San Diego
working with my assistant, Hunter

end of day Saturday chalk painting Little Italy
end of day Saturday

John and Raul in Little Italy
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.

van gogh starry night in chalk, little italy, san diego


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:

Michelangelo chalk painting on asphalt in Little Italy, San Diego
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.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

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.

finish work for Currant in San Diego Home & Garden


finish work for Currant in San Diego Home & Garden


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

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

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.

faux painted brick finish


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.

faux painted wallpaper finish


faux painted stencil wall finish


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.

faux finish painters


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.

faux finish painters


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.