April 3rd, 2012

Fab Furniture Stenciling

It seems like everyone is painting and stenciling furniture these days. And why not? Furniture makes a great little canvas for stencil patterns and you can accent details like table tops, drawer fronts, door panels SO easily and quickly with stencils. The availability and popularity of the the amazing Annie Sloan Chalk Paintâ„¢ is inspiring people all over the country to scour thrift stores and flea markets for furniture pieces that can be transformed in a day with some creativity and a can of paint!

painted furniture with stencils and Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

One of my friends who has caught the furniture painting bug bad good, is Debbie Hayes of Faux Design Studio. Debbie is a long-time decorative artist who has the MOST amazing studio in a converted fabric mill in Greensboro, NC. There she paints endlessly (it seems!), sells her one-of-a-kind furniture pieces and also teaches others how to do the same. Debbie has such an artful approach to using Chalk Paintâ„¢ and stencil patterns we were inspired to create this lovely graphic to showcase her work.

You can find all the details about the Royal Design Studio stencils and Chalk Paint colors Debbie used in this Fabulous Furniture Stencil post on our website. I hope it inspires YOU!

January 16th, 2012

Pinning! Furniture Stenciling

There is so much that I enjoy with sharing this furniture stenciling pin!

furniture stencil with chalk paint

It’s a superb piece by  good friend Debbie Hayes of Faux Design Studio and the Faux Plus Design blog. It uses Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (Duck Egg Blue and Old White), AND Deb incorporated two of my most favoritist stencils from Royal Design Studio: the ever popular and classic Fabric Damask and Brocade Border. It all comes together beautifully in Deb’s brand new studio in Greensboro, NC, where she’ll be hosting an open house this coming Wednesday from 4 to 6:30 pm:

FAUX DESIGN STUDIO, inc
1100 Revolution Mill Drive, Studio 8, Greensboro, NC
336.707.6945

July 5th, 2011

Painting at the Monestir

I have been super fortunate to have been given the opportunity to plan and lead painting adventures to many beautiful cities and countries of the world: France and Italy with my friend Gary Lord, and Marrakech with the help of Maryam Montague. These trips have now actually become an integral part of my business AND personal life. I love doing all the research and planning for both painting and enjoying the local culture, and most especially introducing new experiences to the students who sign on to these trips.  With the help of my friend in Barcelona, Paul Deprez, I have just returned from a 2-week stay in Barcelona and the Catalunya region.

This was my fourth visit to Barcelona, and each time my love for this city grows exponentially. So much so that I am already planning a return painting trip for September 2012! But back to THIS trip….I have so much to share, but thought I should start with the primary reason *cough* for the tour-the decorative painting classes.

The trip was planned to include a 6 night stay in the city and 6 nights in a former monestary in the hills nearby.The monestir, Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, was partially burned and sacked in the 19th century during a widespread backlash against the corruption and power of the church. It is now run by a private foundation that maintains it as a place for solitude, silence, and encourages artistic pursuits.

We were able to set up some small, low-ceilinged rooms as studio spaces to work on a range of projects. I wanted to take the opportunity to incorporate some forthcoming stencils from The Hearst Castle Collection, as these were designs created by Julia Morgan to decorate Hearst Castle in a Spanish/Mediterranean Revival style.

The Delphine Panel sample was done on smooth textured plaster background. We laid in the initial color and pattern with a simple dry-brush stencil technique. I was inspired by the amazing work of Italian artist, Carolina d’Ayala Valva, to overpaint the stenciling with washes of color to create a luminous look.

Some day, I would love to have the opportunity to study with Carolina in her Rome Atelier, but in the meantime I have her wonderful book, which I highly recommend! After painting with watered-down acrylics (as opposed to the traditional egg tempera) the painting on plaster was sanded to distress, and given a soft toning glaze.

Here is lovely Nancy showing off her own completed panel.

Another panel that I have taken from Julia Morgan’s amazing architectural drawings is the Pescado Panel. It is full of whimsical birds and fish that appear almost happy to have been caught-ha!

This panel is stenciled with three colors of our new Royal Stencil Cremes over a background of composition gold leaf. The gold leaf has been patinated and distressed with a safe chemical process that I am still perfecting-as much as you “can” perfect a chemical process! Once I have it a little more “under control”, I will surely share the details. ;)

Another project that we worked on was a faux tile mural. For this we again used upcoming Hearst Castle Collection stencils. In this case we simply used them as patterns to trace and then add loose hand painting to create the look of classic Portuguese tiles. My sample above shows the mural in various stages of  completion. I hope to finish the mural in the next couple of weeks. It was thrilling for me to have the time to actually pick up a brush and paint, as it seems my hands are most often attached to a computer keyboard these days!

This study shows the final effect of the last step-adding a China Crackle layer (from Modern Masters) and rubbing in a toning glaze to reveal the cracks and add depth and aging.

Here is a completed mural by Debbie Hayes, who was the fastest painter of the bunch of us! It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? All of the stencils featured in the projects above will be available soon from Royal Design Studio stencils!

Another decorative style that is synonymous with Barcelona is Modernisme, the uniquely Catalunyan version of Art Nouveau. I wanted to honor that heritage, and so we also did a tecnique using metallic foils with a new Modello Marquetry Masking Pattern stencil from Modello Designs.

On our way from Barcelona to the monestir, we stopped at Espintura Studio to do an embedded tile pattern technique with SkimStone and a Modello masking pattern.

Now that I am back, I’m continuing to work on the videos and lessons for my next Virtual Workshop combining these two mediums.

I hope you enjoyed seeing our painting samples from Barcelona! As I said above, I am already planning a return trip in Sept. 2012, so drop me an email if you want to be the first to get those details when they become available!. The details on this recent trip are still available here.

You can view more photos from the Barcelona painting class and trip in my flickr sets!

February 12th, 2011

Stencil Giveaway/MadebyGirl

WooHoo!! Royal Design Studio is sponsoring a stencil giveaway over on the lovely Made by Girl Blog!

MadebyGirl

Head on over there and get all the details and follow the directions for the chance to win a FREE stencil of YOUR choice, valued up to $50. The drawing will be held February 18, so leave your entry comment SOON! Jen has featured some of our latest stencil designs, such as…..

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Our new Large Marrakech Trellis stencil,

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our modern, graphic Endless Circle Lattice stencil,

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and our new Uzbek Suzani allover stencil. You may recognize this last design, as it was first done here on my first painting adventure to Marrakesh at Peacock Pavilions. For that project, we used very large Modello masking stencils. My friend Debbie Hayes later used the same design in an elegant brown and gold bathroom shown here. This new mylar stencil is a bit scaled down from that but it’s still quite a grand size and makes a fabulous bold statement, I think!

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Besides running the very popular Made by Girl blog, Jen also has an online Made by Girl store where she sells her original (and very clever) artwork on posters, canvases, and cards.

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I particularly love the typography posters where she highlights letters to spell names and sayings. I would just like to say thank you to Jen for hooking us, and YOU, up with this fun giveaway. Good luck everyone!!!

January 18th, 2011

Here and There

Being the busy little bee that I am, I thought I would just point you in some inspiring directions around the web today to some fabulous blog posts that have special meanings to me.

Palazzo-Corsini

Debbie Hayes has a beautiful eye and a beautiful blog, FauxPlusDesign, where she shares her decorative art, photography, travels, and interesting musings about all of the above. This post features some super juicy photos of the private tour of the Palazzo Corsini in Florence, Italy that was arranged on our decorative painting adventure last October. We were honored that the lovely Contessa Corsini herself led us through the palace, sharing her family history and great taste in art and architecture! Debbie’s photos truly capture the splendor of this amazing place on the bank of the Arno river.

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Regina Garay has a fabulous design and decorating blog, Fauxology, where she shares daily inspiration on design and color trends, decorative painting, and a whole host of other visual goodies. It’s a “must read” for professional creatives and design devotees. All this week, she is featuring groin ceilings, and TODAY’S feature just happens to be on using our Modello Masking Stencil Patterns for artful decoration of this architectural asset.

Stencils-Hearst Castle

A great new blog discovery for me this past weekend (thanks Anna Sadler!) is ArchitectDesign. Stefan Murray has recently been featuring a series of posts and extensive photo essays on Hearst Castle. Now, as you may recall, Modello Designs and Royal Design Studio have recently been selected to become licensees for the Hearst Castle Collection, and I am currently in the process of developing stencil patterns based on the endless array of decorative painting and design details that are contained in this national treasure. If you haven’t been to Hearst Castle, you can travel through Stefan’s blog posts. Enjoy the tour!

January 13th, 2011

Corsini Damask Stencil Art

One of the more recent additions to the Royal Design Studio stencil collection is the Corsini Damask Stencil. This stencil pattern was developed especially for the Italy painting trip that I hosted last October with my good buds Gary Lord and Alison Wooley. It was a special trip, filled with lots of fun and good painting friends. The Corsini Damask Stencil gets it’s name from the Corsini family-a blessed and noble Italian family with a long and rich history who also happen to own villas, palazzos, and castles througout Italy, including the Castello di Casigliano where we were fortunate to work, stay, and play for a second time in the last three years.

Stencil-Corsini-Damask-Laur

For my class project, I decided to give the students a limited range of stencils, Modello Masking Stencil Patterns, some interesting paint techniques, a limited color palette, and a large piece of canvas. Basically, I turned them loose to exercise their creativity and the results were fantabulous!

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Each canvas became a unique work of art and it was so inspiring to see how each person interpreted the patterns and colors in a special way.

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Applying stencil patterns as canvas art frees you to really explore color, texture, shape, and scale in a different way from wall stenciling. You can be bolder and more creative with your color combinations, and easily introduce mediums other than paint, such as gilding, plasters, and waxes. Basically, anything goes!

Stencil-Corsini-Damask-Barb

This canvas art was done on Roclon, an amazing material that is actually canvas laminated to both sides of a thin plastic core. It is very flexible, wrinkle resistant, doesn’t shrink, and comes ready to apply  paint, plaster, metallics, or whatever medium you want to work in. Alternatively, you can do stenciled canvas art on stretched canvas that will be ready to hang. The type of canvas art shown here is ideal for hanging from a decorative curtain rod, as you would a tapestry. Artwork done on the Roclon cloth can also be permanently affixed to a wall with wallpaper paste. My fabulous artist friends shown here are (top to bottom) Lauren Gaines, Nancy Jones, Debbie Hayes, and Barb Skivington. Of course, you can use the Corsini Damask Stencil very nicely on a wall too!

Stencil-Corsini-Damask-Sass

This room above was done by Sass Lassly, another great addition to our Italy painting adventure, in her own bathroom. Note the random application of the stenciling. This is a great way to add pattern quickly and artistically.

I hope this post inspired you! Hint: Stenciled canvas art is also a great way to use up those little bits of paint and plaster you have lying around, as well as maybe revisiting some stencil patterns you may not have used in awhile. The 3074 Corsini Damask Stencil is available in both a large and small version. The small version is shown in all photos above.

February 28th, 2010

Faux Plus Design

I’d like to welcome another friend and decorative finisher to the blogging world. Debbie Hayes is a very talented Greensboro, NC decorative artist who has been featured a few times before on this blog. 

Debbie

Her new blog,  Faux Plus Design showcases her photography and literary talents (she’s a former newspaper editor) as well as her artistic skills. Debbie has accompanied me on several of the painting adventures abroad that I’ve been involved with in the past, including France, Morocco, and Italy.

souk kitties

She talks about these (and her ongoing wanderlust) in some recent blog posts, including one on Moroccan Souk kitties….

TTuscany

…and one on our last trip to Italy.

studio

Some of these travels have inspired the color-saturated decoration of her amazing, inviting studio!

Studio 2

I am happy that Debbie (and her talents and ever-ready camera) will be joining us on our next trip to Italy this coming Fall. To find out more about trips to both Italy and Morocco, click here….

June 2nd, 2009

I think I thought this.

When I was writing the previous post about Debbie Hayes and her work I typed in “you can see more of Debbie’s work here and here” thinking that I had already posted some other photos that Debbie has sent me. Well, lo and behold, they were never blogged! More proof that just thinking about doing something doesn’t make it happen, LOL. So, here now is what I thought I had done before but only really thought I had done. Follow???

stencils-on-ceiling

Debbie, and her very lovely interior designer friend Sandra Barron, have actually been on a couple of painting trips abroad with me. The first was a trip to the South of France that involved some medieval church stenciling renovation led by a Parisian artist. Debbie and Sandra were inspired by that experience to create this unique ceiling treatment for Sandra’s bedroom.

modello-suzani-stencils

They also were on the May 2008 trip to Marrakech where we did this very graphic ceiling treatment based on an antique textile in one of the guest rooms at Maryam’s Peacock Pavilions. Debbie and Sandra reinterpreted that design on a slightly smaller scale in this dramatic powder bath.

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stencils-on-glass-and-walls

Above are some photos of Debbie’s very cool studio in Greensboro, NC where she’s used Royal Design Studio stencils and Modello masking pattern typography. Speaking of trips to Marrakech, I have just received a pdf of an article that I wrote for the Artisphere (a trade magazine) on our most recent trip there in January 2009. If you would like to relive that experience with me (sigh!) you can find the article here.

May 29th, 2009

More Foil Fun

Here’s more foil fun from my friend and fellow Morocco traveler, Debbie Hayes!

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Debbie did this metallic foil finish in the niches of an authentically decorated Southwestern home.

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She adapted the idea from my “Loose Screws” metallic foil finish and used the pattern from our Nairobi Concrete Carpet. I love the impact of this pattern done in the foils. You can see a great example of how using different mediums and colors with the same design can give you dramatically different results by comparing these photos with the Nairobi carpet photo in this blog post.

Soon enough, the guest houses that make up Peacock Pavilions will be filled with exotic carpets and leather poufs, fluffed with down pillows and sequined vintage wedding blankets, buffed with silver vases filled with fresh flowers and sugary Moroccan mint tea. The plaster walls will reflect light from custom-made pierced metal sconces and pendants and Maryam will delight in making everything “just so”. For now though, Chris the architect husband is testing his talents for patience and perserverance as he fashions and finesses the glorious architecture that will house their family, Maryam’s delightful treasures and lucky visitors. It hasn’t been easy-and every day brings new challenges-but just look at what a fabulous job he has done!

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Peacock Pavilions

Each of the three buildings boasts its own unique architectural details, while maintaining a connection to the land, the sky and its sister buildings. Each is filled with delightful nooks, crannies, arches, domes that are so visually strong they require no further need for decoration. And yet…..;)

Photos by Becky Roth and Debbie Hayes