Painter Girl

Tropical Mural

My last task at this home was to continue a Tropical themed mural I did a few years ago, onto one more wall. 
This was the original wall I did.  Btw... since the man of the house is the only male here, with 4 daughters and a wife, this bathroom is located in the basement and is sanctioned for his use only.  It's very calm and peaceful in here!

The new wall is comprised of this section, a small space above this door seen on the right, and then another smaller section that abuts the shower stall.  You can see this better in the next photo.

Here's a close up of the far wall, near shower stall.

Can I tell you?... the liquid soap in this bathroom smelled good enough to eat! It was mango pomegranate.

Breast Cancer 3 Day/Jungle Mural Completed

Before I begin my post about the completion of the Jungle Mural, I must tell you how proud I am of my daughter and her friend, Tanya for taking on the challenge of the 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk held this past Fri-Sunday, here in Boston.  They walked twenty miles each day, beginning their walk very early Friday morning in the pouring... and I mean pouring, rain!  I met up with them on Saturday and Sunday to take a few photos and cheer them on.  Over 1500 walkers participated in this event, each of them raising a minimum of $2300.  Both Sarah and Tanya surpassed their $2300 goal, calling on friends, family, and co-workers to support the cause.  Great job girls!!!  (Tanya on left, Sarah on right) Love their temp tattoos!

The Jungle Mural is now done.  Here you can see the full view, give or take a few inches.  Now the problem with thinking I am truly finished with this mural will be left to see if I can actually stay out of this room while I proceed onto the next 3 projects in this same house!  I already overstayed my welcome in this room by 1 day, fussing around.

I did have this ugly butterfly in the mural.  As soon as I did it, I hated it.  I tried to adjust it, but it just got worse, as you can see.  So, I painted it out..

...and replaced it with these two, softer, prettier butterflies.

These photos show you a closer look at some of the elements in the mural:

Now I am moving on to what I call the Stenciled Collage Room.  :-)

Progess in the Jungle Room

I took Monday off from on site working this week to get some samples done.  Tuesday and today I made some very good progress in this Jungle Room. 

Now remember, when viewing these pics, that it is a work in process...no where near complete yet!  To stay on my self imposed schedule, I should have wrapped this mural up today. But, I'm having a lot of fun with this, and decided I wanted to put more detail into it than what was originally planned.  The mural had to be scaled back quite a bit to fit within the budgetary constraints.  Since I am doing 3 bedrooms and 1 addition to a mural in another bath,  I decided to go the extra distance with this mural and will spend one more day in here tomorrow.

This mural will have 2 monkeys.  Today I put in the first.  This one is an old stencil I've had for years from L.A. Stencils, no longer in business.  The second monkey, which I will add tomorrow, will be projected from a picture found by the little girl who resides in this room.  I am using a combination of freehand drawing and stencils for this mural.  I have all of the stencils at the job site right now, so will credit the stencils used at the end of the project when I have them all in front of me.
When I left today, Melanie, the room's occupant, was not home so I stuck this little note near the monkey for her to see.  It says " Hello Melanie!  I've come to live in your room. :-)"

I love this Red Ginger stencil.  Again, this is one I've had forever and have not had a chance to use it for several years!

More tomorrow........

More Day Care Center Painting

I returned to one of the Learning Zone Day Care Centers over the weekend to do a little more work.  We are continuing with the same themes for the various rooms to keep consistency throughout the 3 Learning Zones.  Two Learning Zones are currently open.  One will expand to almost double in size and a 3rd Learning Zone is under construction and slated to open early 2009.  January will be a busy month for me with these 2 Centers ready for my brushes.  Melissa, the owner, thinks there will be about 14 rooms between the 2 new sites.

Guest Decorative Painter

Today I am featuring a very talented decorative painter, Chris Smith, of Stenciling Etc.  Chris and I attended the Decorative Painting/Faux Event together last week.  I asked Chris if she would be so kind as to write a review of the 3 classes she took, so today she will discuss the Grottesca class.  Here is her review in her own words:

"The class I took with Nicola Vigini was called Italian Ornamentation: Grottesca.  I really wanted to improve my skills in this area, and learn from the Master.  Nicola is an internationally recognized faux and decorative artist.  He is originally from Rome and was schooled at the Institute Superieure de Peintre Decorative in Paris.  He operates Vigini Studios Inc., and also a decorative painting program in Italy.   
Grottesca is a style of ornamentation coming from ancient Roman fresco painting.  The designs are of arabesque-like figures of flora and fauna motifs, within architectural details. (panels, moldings, etc.)
Generally the designs chosen are put on the surface by tracing or pounce patterns, or stencil.  It is done in a very light color, just to impart the pattern being used.  All the work following is hand applied using a variety of color, and brush strokes.  Most of the pattern is symmetrical, with minor differences, sometimes inserting monograms, or other personal details.
Shadow and lighting is taken into consideration , just as you do for trompe l'oeil work.
It was a great class, but we could have used a few more days just to listen to all the historical information that Nicola has to share."

The photo above is the sample board Chris made in Nicola's class.

Just to show you want an incredibly talented decorative painter Chris is, here is a good example of the quality work she provides her clients:

Chris did this work last winter with muralist Kim Senior, another incredibly talented woman!  Kim did the mural and Chris did the ornamentation.  Chris says, " In this design, the picture was copied from a magazine article, and I designed the ornamentation to go around it.  The ornamentation was done in Grisaile, and the work was then framed in a custom mahogany frame trimmed with gold leaf. " 

Chris will be back here again to discuss her other 2 classes.  Stay tuned.  Thanks Chris!

Mural Additions

Earlier this month, I wrote about returning to one of my client's homes to add to a mural, (http://paintit.typepad.com/painter_girl/2007/11/adding-to-a-mur.html).  I returned to this home yet again this week to do some new work in the Master Bedroom and a small bathroom.  While I was there, I took new pictures of the mural with the additional work.  The last time I was there, my batteries ran out in my camera, so I was not able to get clear pictures.

Here is the mural before the additions.

Here is the mural with the new additions.  I added the dark blue pail on the right because a new grandchild was born into this family.  I also added a 2nd Golden Retriever (near the umbrella), as this was also a new addition to the family.  A white fence was constructed around the deck over the summer, so I painted that in too.  It's fun to see the mural grow and change as this family grows and changes!

Adding To A Mural

I recently received a phone call from a client whom I did a mural for last year.  The mural I did was a view from their vacation home in the mountains, facing a lake.  The homeowner wanted four pails in the sand, one for each of their grandchildren.  This was a very fun project to work on because the homeowners provided a lot of input and photos for me to work from.  They wanted to include the family dog, 2 boats, the deck, the beach, etc.  The biggest challenge was that this mural wall began 10' up from the floor, to the 15' ceiling height.  I was able to reach it all from ladders and some relatively short scaffolding.  I never took pictures of this job because when I finished, the kitchen/breakfast/family room area where this was done, all were still very much under construction w/scaffolding blocking much of the mural.  Since this home is nearby, I thought I'd just pop over there later and get the photos.  Well, of course, I forgot about it until I got this call.  A new grandson arrived, so another pail needed to be added to the beach!  Also, a new dog and a new fence around the deck were added. 

The bad news was I dropped my digital camera on a tile floor last week and now it does not work.  I borrowed my brother's camera, but soon discovered the batteries needed charging!  I was able to get off a view pics before it died completely.  I will return soon to get new photos because not only do I not have great photos of this mural, I have no photos of the new bathroom I also did in this home which has a fabulous stenciled ceiling! 

This shot shows the height of the mural and almost the entire width.  This is before I added a 5th pail, the dog and the fence around the deck.  This mural faces into an open kitchen and family room.  Where I am standing to take the picture, is the open dining area.

Here's a slightly different angle.

This shows a closer view and some of the detail, like the kids names on each pail and one of the Golden's in the background near the chairs.