It’s been a long and colorful journey for my friend Maryam and her husband Chris to realize their vision for their “built from the ground up” boutique hotel, Peacock Pavilions, in an olive grove just outside of Marrakesh.

A journey that has been well-told and documented on Maryam’s award winning blog, My Marrakesh. After meeting online, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Chris and Maryam on multiple painting projects at Peacock Pavilions that have turned into leading American artisans on almost annual painting adventures to this lovely place. It’s been such a joy to see the transformation of PP from a muddy construction site to a beautiful oasis, and also to see Maryam’s transformation from a budding blogger with a dream to an accomplished photographer, international design star, Moroccan decorating expert, and now published author!

Just last month, the family home at Peacock Pavilions was featured in none other than Elle Decor! What a thrill to see the Art Deco mural I had designed for a guest room featured in all its full-page spendor!

Not to mention, the master bedroom floor stenciled with lovely Skylar’s Lace!

Now just this week, Marrakesh by Design, is hitting the bookstores and Maryam is on her official American Book Tour, which just so happens to be making a special stop at our San Diego Studio this coming Saturday May 12th!! If you are in the Southern California area you won’t want to miss this Moroccan Decorating Event and book signing opportunity. Besides a design talk, we have some special treats planned, including a Peacock Feather stencil to take home, a Moroccan themed stencil project, a henna tattoo artist and other goodies. Please do check it out as we are looking forward to bringing a touch of Morocco-and Maryam- to San Diego!

A random Pinterest search yesterday brought me to the most stunning, moody, sensuous painting of a woman with gold flecked hair.

Of course I wanted to see more…don’t you! Clicking through to the original source led me to an exceptional design blog Jeannie Jeannie, and article on artist Brad Kunkle, who embellishes his oil painting of women with real gold and silver leaf to not only add a symbolic element, but to also allow light to play across the painting. The effect is amazing…enchanting… mesmerizing. Spend a few minutes, or much more, on his website enjoying the light….

This year’s annual IDAL (International Decorative Artisan’s League) Convention is right around the corner. It will be held in Norfolk, VA July 20-24. I have taught there now for every year for the last 17 years. I guess you could say it’s a tradition! Last year, I taught a hands-on workshop that incorporated our Modello masking patterns and Royal Design Studio stencils with plasters from the Vella Venetian plaster system. My absolute favorite finish of the five that I taught was a distressed Provence plaster finish in French red and blue colors. In case you missed it, which I KNOW you did, the step-by-step outline of my Provence Plaster finish  featured at today’s edition of Artisphere Online-with photos!  

The Artisphere Online, the official publication of the International Decorative Artisan’s League, is a relatively new digital magazine that has just gone to a daily (Mon-Fri) format. Each week there will be a feature article, an IDAL Update, a blog report, a featured product, and a step-by-step tutorial, so you will want to sign up for the feed so you don’t miss anything! You don’t have to be a member to enjoy the magazine, but we would sure like to welcome you to “the family” if you’re so inclined to join!

Speaking of THIS year’s convention, I believe that there are just a couple of spots open in my hands-on class Shining Up Your Portfolio, where I will focus on metallic finishes with stencils and Modello patterns.

I will also be joined by the lovely Helen Morris, of The Stencil Library once again to reprise our lecture/demo from last year, Double Vision. I wrote about this last year, and am looking forward to working with Helen to show you all the ins and outs of the amazing stencil. Hope to see you there!

WHOA! Check THIS out….this is an amazing bathroom transformation from the ever fabulous Gracie Reed, of Grace Designs Dallas.I have posted quite a bit of Gracie’s work here, as she is super talented and was also a featured artist and cover girl for our inspiration book, Modello by Design, Volume 2.

For this project, Gracie acted as the general contractor, decorator, and decorative finisher to turn this ugly duckling bathroom into a black swan. Modello masking stencil used: EasCen103. I wouldn’t normally use the word “sexy” to describe a bathroom, but I think it’s totally appropriate in this case, don’t you?

I was inspired by this post over on Fauxology to explore the Petra Antiqua website further. Now I am just inspired to gild, oh, shall we say……….everything! 

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

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

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.

Metallic Foils are smokin’ hot! They’ve been around the decorative painting world for years, but I’ve just started playing around with them a year or so ago. Sometimes, I’m a little slow to get to the table….but now I’m a certified foil addict and it seems like every new surface finish I start involves the thought, “hmmmm, how can I get some foil into this…”

SO, when it came time to create some new finishes to teach to our artist group in Italy, out came the foils. I wanted to do something cool (and quick) so hit on the idea of using stencils to create a multi-layer foil finish in JUST ONE LAYER. 

On some of them, I expanded by going back and highlighting the pattern with some additional color and on some used the reverse image I was able to get with the foil after applying in through the stencil.

It’s WAY cool!

So, I taught two of these new finishes at our class in Italy, and everyone’s samples turned out awesome-and we discovered even MORE options.

One of our group, Pattie Nickel, loved these techniques SO much she did this fabulous accent wall almost immediately after unpacking her bags.

Isn’t this just “WOW”?! She used one of our most popular stencil patterns, the Foliate Damask Allover stencil. I’m working on some instructional material and “recipes” for these techniques to include a mini-book and DVD that I hope to have in time for the IDAL Convention in July, so I’ll be foilin’ around in my studio quite a bit in the next few weeks…..

I wrote about my Turkish door idea a week or so ago. It’s done and we finally have the room put together (more on that tomorrow!) I photo’d the door before we hung it up because the bathroom is so small I never could have gotten a shot off!

Here it is, all metallic-y and gilty from a combo of metallic paint and Celestial Leaf.

This is a fun shot that Melissa snapped of the leaf laid in place and ready to be burnished.

and a detail of the lower panel of the door. Still using my favorite colors here: Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight. The effect is so great and the application so easy that we finally got something done to this little table that has been taking up storage space for 5 years.

Coat of black paint and then size and leaf each color separately.

A detail of a Modello pattern on the top (OrnCen170). Cute knob by Anthro, of course!

We are finally getting round to putting the finishing touches on the Celestial Powder Bath. The thing is, once you start to go “over the top” with surface decoration in a room it becomes a runaway train. With extravagently decorated walls, you simply can’t leave other surfaces untouched. They stick out like an ugly sore thumb. And so, we have moved on to the hardware and the inside of the plain white door. As the back of the door will only really be seen when the facilities are “in use”, I imagine that this will become our most popular bathroom in the building. (Once the door is back on, of course). Here is the design-

And here are the samples to test some possible color variations. I will actually be adding some dark brown areas to really punch up the Celestial Leaf colors.

The Celestial Leaf is one of my new favorites toys! There are nine color variations that the manufacturer in Italy has come up with through a special heat treating process they’ve developed. I seem to keep gravitating to the colors Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight, which are seen in the samples above, but they are all quite gorgeous!