Venetian Plaster Ceiling

On the theme of finishing up old business (see last post), I came across pictures of some past projects I've been meaning to publish, but haven't yet for variety of reasons.

So here's a room I'm really pleased with for its light touch but authoritative impact.



The yellow panels behind the piano are a simple acrylic faux finish that corresponds with the walls in the main room that includes the piano room (where this picture is taken from), I have pictures of that room somewhere, too now that I think about it.

The plaster ceiling is designed to correspond to that color but offer the depth and richness of the piano finish with dramatic reflectance and glow of highly polished wax finish over burnished venetian plaster.

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".

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.

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.