I just spent the weekend in the Chicago area at my friend Kathy Carroll’s studio, The Chicago Institute of Fine Finishes. Kathy was so kind to invite me there to help familiarize me with the Oikos product line and allow me to make samples for our upcoming Italy trip using those products. You see, we’ve decided to use Italian plasters, available in Florence, for our projects there and Oikos is one of the largest decorative coatings manufacturers there in Italy.

Not only did she provide me with her space and product knowledge, Kathy even blessed me with her two EXTREMELY good assistants Jennifer and Jenna, who were kept busy custom tinting quarts of Travertino, Marmorino and Veltura alla Calce for me to test out techniques and color palettes. They are shipping the samples back to me this week, so I will photo and post them later this week. Meanwhile, here are some photos from Kathy’s studio.

Me playing/working and me and Kathy trying to get a good photo of the both of us before I rushed off to catch a plane. We gave up after 5 tries!

Some of Kathy’s cool Oikos plaster samples I found around her studio. Kathy carries a wide range of products and teaches classes on all of them! www.fauxbykathy.com.

So the “Old World” look is out in some circles, but I still can’t help partake in the joys of what you can create with a trowel and some type of plaster product. It’s especially fun to work with the “touch” of the trowel (and your arm that is attached to it) to layer materials that create the look of passing time.

This finish uses our Acanthus Damask stencil design and is troweled through with a mix of paint and joint compound in various colors and layers. The fun thing is that you have to apply it “not perfectly” so there is lots of wriggle room. You don’t want to get too sloppy but…

This is my new favorite wall finish. I just have a thing for embossed leather looks. This is the Folk Flower Allover stencil that is embossed and then buried with paint, Venetian Plaster, stain and wax. Both of these finishes will be incorporated into an Extraordinary Stenciled Effects class here a the studio starting in December-the first one in a few years!

I’m SO happy as we shipped the crate out to the SALI show today and that stress and mess is DONE! Somehow, even though we “cut back” there was still a big pile of stuff that had to go ON TOP of the crate as it wouldn’t fit inside. Here are few more new ‘babies” that went off in the crate for display next week.

I am loving these fresh graphic looks that are definitely a current trend. It’s nice to be able to adapt some old and new stencil designs so easily to this just by changing the colors and painting techniques used. The one on the left uses our Japanese Flower Garden with String of Pearls as stems. The other ones all combine our Modello Silhouette patterns with stencils for “pattern in pattern” look. For the one above we used 4′ tall flowers, painted them in with latex paint and filled them with delicated little allover designs like our Lacy Leaves, Lovely Lace and more.

Above left, we done more of that with some new Dragonfly Modellos. These will all be part of our new “Silhouette and Stencils” series. Above right uses a Transitional Border to create the valance and that was filled the Allover Brocade over a background of a repeated Ornamental Cartouche. We have been having some kind of stenciling fun, let me tell you!

Wow, I feel just awful that I haven’t posted in so long. You see, it’s SALI time. SALI is the Stencil Artisan’s League Convention that happens every summer around this time and causes me to inflict major stress on myself because I have to live up to or exceed last year’s booth display which also caused major stress from having to live up the previous year and so on down the years for about 14 of them now. Every year I say “I’m not going to go all out” and then a few weeks before I get this major creative bug and make myself crazy/exhausted/happy that I got it out of my sytem. The good news is I have a lot of photos to post here for the next week or so! Starting with:

  

These fun, bright graphic designs for kids or tweens or whoever else can handle the stimulation of a lot of color and pattern. More and more people, I think! The one on the left reminds me of some funky outfit I might have worn as a preteen in the late 60′s. It uses our Foliate Damask Allover, Wicker and Half Daisy Chain. The one on the right was fun because I used a “fingerpainting” technique in the wet glaze to create the random scrolling pattern and then we stenciled the Japanese Flower Garden B series in bright pink, black and white. They go quite nicely together, dont they? I think these would be really fun finishes to do in a boutique dressing room for some reason….

The Antique Mirror class last week (see Mirror, Mirror) was a lot of fun and a great success. As it is always best to learn from you mistakes-this was another good learning experience and I think we have got the best approach to applying pattern with mirror patination DOWN. Just like everything else in decorative painting there are an infinite number of ways to interpret this artform and I’m looking forward to discovering all of them. What I haven’t quite figured out is a good way to PHOTOGRAPH mirrors, but here are some class pieces-

A round tabletop with a rusted iron architectural inlay,

a reverse gilded border,

some small class samples, and

my favorite! This is actually the “back” of the mirror on the front. The electroplated surface takes on these fabulous tones with the patination so we waxed it for protection and used a stria technique with shellac on the other side. We will be scheduling some more mirror classes once we get in our new building!

In the ever changing world of web design, last year’s site are already looking a little “retro”. So you can imagine how far behind the times we are with our current Royal Design Studio site that is coming up on birthday number 6! Our product drop down lists don’t even function with IE7 (thanks Microsoft!) so the question now is not “if”, but “how soon?!” We are still working diligently on it, and hope to be re-launching in about a month, but thought I would share the initial page comps. We are working with a really good company based here in San Diego called Digaworks.

You can’t see the nice flash that will be going on, but can get the idea of the direction we are going in. Selling stencils has always been kind of an uphill battle for artistic legitimacy and you are constantly fighting the “ducks and geese” stereotypes that are tenaciously hanging on from the 80′s. My goal is to reintroduce stenciling in a way that is fresh and sexy (as in the marketing term), much like Amy Butler has done for sewing. Wish me luck!

I am so excited about a class I just scheduled here in our studio with Tim Poe, the creator of the Antique Mirror Patina Solutions System. I began experimenting with this product and Modellos to create decorative effects that combine mirror patination with gilding, mica powders and metallic paints and there are some amazingly beautiful things that can be achieved. 

It’s not difficult, but there is definitely a process and a learning curve. Tim will be covering all the basics as well as how to approach multi-tile mirror installations, panels and applying mirror to furniture. I know that there will be a lot of interest in this, so check out this link to download a PDF flyer on the class and register soon if you are interested! I can’t wait!!

If you’d like to read about some more options, here is a link to a recent article I wrote for the Faux Finisher Magazine, Elegant Reflections.

I promised you some more photos from Roomscapes. My favorite thing in the book are all the little, detailed photos of the maquettes he created as he was forming his vision for his client’s rooms, many in just 1:50 scale. I think that this tent effect could be just the thing I will need to cover up some somewhat ugly exposed ceiling spaces in the new studio!

These maquettes were/are used to develop correct color relationships and explore pattern, scale and placement. They remind me of little make-believe houses I would like to just crawl into and play in-probably with crayons and coloring books.

My favorite room photo is this one below as it features an interplay of a theme of patterns that compliiment and contrast with each. This is similar to what I plan to do in my Kimono collage office. I HAVE ordered the paper for that BTW!! I am going to do the design work in my studio and have it trimmed and installed on site. I’m considering doing of line of handpainted papers, so this will be a good chance to experiment!

My dear friend Gary Lord is in the process of writing yet another book for Northlight. This one is on murals and will feature step by steps of a wide variety of mural projects. Taking a different approach, he has asked many different people in the industry to contribute projects, including me! Now, even though I wrote a book for Northlight myself back in 2000 called Trompe L’oeil Murals Using Stencils, I don’t consider myself a muralist. I actually much prefer 2-dimensional design and composing with patterns and textures. SO, I chose to do something quite simple and graphic (plus, I procrastinated and was really squeezed for time!) 

I have long wanted to develop these classic Japanese Cranes into Modello patterns, so this was the perfect opportunity! For the book project, I used the Floral Lattice stencil from Royal Design Studio, but we changed it up a bit for the new Modello Panels that we are offering. I troweled Lustestone, a metallic plaster material, over a gold metallic basecoat that had been rolled on pieces of Roclon canvas, so these could be hung from rods or simply wallpaper pasted to the wall. I was quite pleased with the way they turned out! The book will be available next Spring.    

Each year for the last 13 years I have been priviliged to teach a class or two at the annual Stencil Artisans’s League Convention. Well, it’s that time of year again! The Convention Brochure is finally posted and ready for download at the SALI website. This year, I’m offering an all day class that features Kimono-Inspired Wall Finishes. We will be using traditional stencils and Modello Decorative Masking Patterns, along with metallic plasters and paint, gilding and mica powders to create surface treatments like those shown below.

This years convention will be held July 17-21 in San Francisco (yeah!) and features a wide range of classes from some of the most talented decorative artists in this or any country. Get your class requests in ASAP for the best chance of getting in the classes you want. Many will fill up quickly!

If even just for a day trip (or two), it’s worth it to come and just walk the floor of the Expo to see all of the latest and greatest that the decorative finishing industry has to offer. Both Royal Design Studio and Modello Designs will be there with bells on showing off some new designs and eye candy! You enjoy shopping you say? See the Art of Living blog for just one of many great stores to check out while in SF.