Wow! What a great group of people showed up in the Rome airport to participate in our little painting adventure at the Castello di Casigliano. I’ll share them with you in the next post but first wanted to show you what we DID. Here’s the thing: Modern day Italians seem to like to keep things on the clean and simple side with their decorating. Maybe growing up surrounded by all the extreme art and decoration of the Renaissance leaves them wanting something a little less “in your face’. No matter, it’s all good. Additionally, the space we were working in is used extensively for large wedding parties and what should be the focus in the room in that case? The bride, of course. So-our goal, as laid out by the man in charge, Romano, was to create an elegant, understated atmosphere that tied into the history of the building and the land surrounding it. The space is called The Granaio, and it was restored from a part of the Castello complex that  used to house grain.

We did a soft stone-texture finish on all the walls using the standard production method of rolling it on in high and low areas and then knocking it down slightly. This finish worked out really wall with the many different hands we had working on it (16). You really can’t see a difference from section to section.

We then did a random embossed stencil that was cut from the Granaio logo. Nancy Jones from our group gave Romano a quick lesson. This was his “first time”….see the smile?!

We did a soft, allover glaze and then lightly sanded back the tops of the wheat motif when dry to make it “pop” a little more.

Alison Wooley created a lovely original design for the pilasters that incorporates grain and bread, grapes and wine, and an olive trimmed cartouche to hold the painted family crests of the four families whose history is tied to the Castello, which dates back to the 16th century.

I created a stencil from Alison’s drawing and had it cut by my company Royal Design Studio so that we could more quickly block in the main shapes and shading. Alison custom-mixed a range of 5 values for the grisaille painting.

We did the stencil pattern on a series of 8 pilasters that ring the room.

Gary Lord helped to add some of the final hand painted touches.

Alison and me in front of one of the finished pilasters. One thing that was really cool was getting the chance to introduce Alison to using stenciling as a possible tool for laying in the groundwork for some of her beautiful handpainted pieces.

All in all, it was a very successful project. Everyone worked very hard and very well together, we finished, it looks beautiful, the client was happy-and we are now a part of the long, rich history of this beautiful Castello. Una molto buona esperienza!

All of my photos from this trip are now up on my Flickr photostream.

In Rome, there is an amazing series of museum buildings and collections that make up the Museo Nazionale Romano. My favorite (I just visited for the third time!) is the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme which is located a block away from the Termini train station. Iwrote a post about it before, in fact. I always head straight to the second floor (which is actually the third as they don’t “count” the first. I think it’s a conspiracy to get you up those many stairs.) That is where the frescos and mosaics from the excavations of nearby Roman villas are housed.

The most famous fresco, of course, is the Villa Livia garden fresco and it is recreated in its own room.

This has to be one of the most copied works of Roman art by decorative painters working today. Not hard to figure out why. The simple painting in predominantly soft blue and green colors is truly breathtaking.

The other recovered frescos there are just as inspiring, and many are housed in their own rooms with as many pieces as they could find placed in so that you can get the sense of how it looked in the original space.

Some of the rooms contain fragments of bas relief plaster. Unfortunately these rooms are dark and roped off, but I leaned in as far as I could…. I only wish I could have captured more. There is so much delicate decorative detail in these pieces!

I showed this mosaic already in the previous post, but it’s my favorite so I’ll show it again! The smallest mosaic pieces in this work are 1/8″ square. The colors are just to die for!

So-when in Rome……Palazzo Massimo alle Terme!

Ciao! I’ve just returned from my 2 week trip to Italia. It was FABULOUS, thank you! I’m still getting my “back to reality” legs under me and it’s taking quite a bit of time to sort through photos (and here I felt like I was hardly taking ANY). While I plug away on THAT I thought I could at least quickly share some of my favorite shots from the Vatican Museum. While this was my 4th trip to Rome, this was my first trip to Vatican City (it’s its own state, you know). Three words come to mind: jaw dropping art.  You could point and shot your camera aimlessly and still always capture something amazing. Well, at least if it wasn’t full of tourists rushing about….

Trompe L’oeil Drapery. Yeah, it’s cool. This was hiding behind a door.

Proof that Roman’s had foot fetishes.

Grape vines. Always a classic.

Trompe l’oel ceiling panels. These are really flat surfaces. There were so many of these they almost started to feel “ordinary”. Almost.

A bronzed Ceasar. On his way to the shower, I think.

Just your average carved wood shutter.

Faces frozen in time.

We did this tour on our last day. Frankly, I was exhausted but LOVED it. Since I threw a coin over my shoulder at the Trevi Fountain I guess I’ll get to go back to Rome. It’s hard to resist….

I’m keeping my traveling shoes ready by the door and my travel cosmetic bag stocked with miniscule amounts of shampoo and body lotion. Why? Another Italy trip is on the horizon with my bud Gary Lord. You may recall our last trip (October 2007) where we took a group to Florence to paint at the San Bartolo studio of Alison Wooley? Well, the Corsini family, who own the lovely Fattoria di Maiano where we stayed just outside Florence also have extensive properties throughout Italy. At one point in history, you could walk from Florence to Rome and never leave their property! These are the kinds of ancestors I WISH I had, but instead will have to experience their real estate holdings vicariously through staying and painting at some of them. Actually, the Contessa is an amazingly beautiful, down-to-earth, hard working woman who we were all quite taken with.

This trip, we will be traveling to the heart of Umbria for the first ten days of May 2009 to live, learn and work at the Castello di Casigliano. It is in a lovely, more rural setting amongst wheat and sunflower fields and surrounded by quaint, classic Italian hill towns.

Our main project will be to transform the banquet room that has been newly built along side the ancient castle with some plastering, stenciling and handpainting.

The amazingly talented Alison will be joining us and providing the artwork for the pilasters. Shown above are two of her proposals that have been submitted to the owners. Aren’t they lovely?? We will also be teaching some fabulous new finishes there that are being developed exclusively for our group of 20. There are just a few openings left. Would you like to join us? Please find all the details on our upcoming Umbria trip here. Musings on our last trip here.

On one of our free days in Italy we took the bus to the lovely city of Lucca and stopped on the way at one of the famed Villas of Lucca that are nestled in the surrounding rolling hills. “Our” villa was the Villa Mansi, built by a family that made their fortune in the silk trade.

This beautiful building is in a storybook, parklike setting, surrounded by stately trees-all imported from Japan and Asia.

Did you know that the symbol of Tuscany, the cypress tree actually comes from Asia!? Just a little Tuscany trivia.

Inside, all of the rooms were beautifully painted in different styles including Chinoiserie and Grotessca.

The grand dining room was jaw-dropping, however. The bas relief trompe l’oeil painting was so well executed you just wanted to get up their and dust off the carvings.

As you can see from the crack in the wall in this detail, though, that wouldn’t be necessary. Amazing art in a magical place. By the way, they are working on renovating the upstairs to rent out the entire Villa, so gather you friends together for the vacation of your dreams. PS, thanks to Carlo Mori and Eva LaRue for taking better photos than me!

Our little Florentine Silk Damask room turned out divinely. Interestingly and fortuitously enough, they seem to like to put showers right in the thick of things in their bathrooms in Italy-so you have a toilette, a sink and there in the corner a shower head coming right out of the wall with a drain on the floor. This works GREAT for cleaning big stencils as there is not need to try and squish them into a pesky little sink.

Here’s Debbie and Lori doing one of many repeats of damask around the room, along with a final photo.

And here’s Gary in one of his favorite spots-sandwiched between a bevy of beautiful babes, namely: Becky, Kari, moi, Alison and Jeanine. You lucky, lucky man. 

So, yeah, Italy was amazing! We were really lucky to be accompanied by a fabulous group of 30 people. Now, that may seem like a lot-it sure did to me-and we were working in a smallish space but I’ve never seen a group of diverse people work so well together. We were able to get an incredible amount of work done in a week and there were smiles all around all the time. Maybe it had something to do with the many bottles of red wine on our lunch tables. Hmmm?

This is my favorite shot. Do you think that they are engaging in some girl talk? Naw, probably discussing trowelling techniques. Speaking of that, we did quite a bit of it on this 250 sq. ft. floor area.

Racing to the finish line.

All hands on deck.

Me posing (just a little)

Susan and Todd (who really never did stop smiling)

A pattern picking party. I think many were looking for the opportunity to sit down at this point!

Ta da! The floor turned out to be seriously gorgeous. We were all wishing we could take it home but happy to leave our mark in lovely Florence. A very special Thank You to Modern Masters for their generous donation of SkimStone for this major Modello project that uses one of our Ornamental Allover patterns, OrnAll 107.

Sgraffito is a decorative technique that involves layering contrasting colors of lime plaster. While still wet, the design is scratched into the top layer of the lighter colored plaster and then the negative spaces of the design are removed to reveal the darker layer underneath. You can imagine the time and skill involved in managing this type of artform, particularly as it was accomplished across the entire facade of a building. There are still buildings in Florence that bear this beautiful and intricate artform, dating as far back as the 15th century. It was at that time that many fanciful frescoed examples from ancient Rome were found, now buried in underground cavelike rooms (‘grottoes’) after thousands of years of development. The discovery of these stuccowork motifs of flora, fauna and monstrous figures inspired many decorative artists at the time, who began incorporating these motifs into their work on a large scale and referred to them as ‘grotesques”.

The 16th century artist who is credited with the invention of the grotesque compositions in black and white sgraffito is Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, who directed a flourishing workshop that specialized in the decoration of furniture, textiles, coats of arms, interiors and was particularly renowned for its scraffito facade grotesques. I snapped the photo above on a street in Oltrarno, but there is a lovely book available on the subject, The Painted Facades of Florence, that is filled with the history and motifs of this classic Florentine artform.

  

I particularly enjoy the photo shown just above as you can clearly see where the artist either forgot or ran out of time or daylight to carve out the final small details of the egg and dart molding. We will be attempting to create a faux sgraffito finish in the bathrooms at Alison’s studio. By that I mean that we will create the look not by using a removal technique, but rather applying the plaster in layers using stencils and Modellos. The silvery-black and white coloration should look really handsome with the blue tile already on the walls!

Located at 4 Via Bartolini, the Florence silk factory and showroom of Antico Setificio Fiorentino (Antique Florentine Silk Factory) is a lovely little time capsule. Everything about it: The buildings, the interiors, the patterns, the fabrics, even the profusely blooming wisteria growing up the wall has the look of unstudied perfection. Here is the place where they still weave silk fabrics by hand on wooden looms, just as they did at the height of the Renaissance.

In fact, a visit to the Uffizi gallery down the street to study the paintings of the masters can also be a study of the silk damasks, brocades and the iridescent ermisino that clothe and adorn the painting’s subjects and participants and are painted with exquisite detail. 

Alison and I visited the Antico Setificio on my recent Italy trip to get some inspiration for some of the designs for wall finishes we will be doing in her studio in San Bartolo on our October group trip. We will be doing one room with a combination of plasters and metallic waxes to replicate the look textural/smooth damasks that the factory creates (and that sell for upwards of $400/yd.) Another high-ceilinged room will have a deep frieze that resembles a valance similar in look to some of their custom fabrications for canopy beds that feature elaborate banding and trims. The factory is located in the Oltrarno area of Florence, close to many of the other artisan workshops. They welcome visitors here. You just have to ring the bell. If you can’t visit in person, there is a richly illustrated book available (sold only through them) and it’s photographs are featured here.

Still on the second floor of the National Museum of Rome: Wall frescoes from the Villa della Farnesina. After coming home and doing some more research on this, I have found that these frescoes from the 3rd century were discovered and excavated in the late 18th century from the gardens of the current Villa della Farnesina. This villa, built in the Trastevere area of Rome on the banks of the Tiber was a quite large residential villa surrounded by lush gardens. They have been able to reconstruct several rooms from it at the museum, albeit with many pieces missing. 

Behind a long glass case, they have assembled what is left of a long wall of panels and columns, part of which it shown above.

My favorite “antiquities” photo from the whole trip is the small, fractured piece of the delicate column base shown above, right. It’s hard to imagine how it would have felt to be surrounded daily by that much artistic and natural beauty!

The more recent Renaissance version of Villa della Farnesina is open to the public. In fact, there are many Roman Villas, many containing beautiful botanical gardens that are available for touring and can provide a welcome brake from the zipping cars and throngs of pedestrians and fill the streets and sidewalks of Rome. Since I tossed a coin into the Trevi fountain over my back, I am guaranteed a return to Rome some day and may make it a “Villa” trip!