Glorious Gracie....!

I think you all know by now that I have a penchant for all things Chinoiserie.....

I recently was asked to embellish a small powder room done in Gracie paper. The trim and door were white and competed with the scene.

I based coated everything in a high green. Gracie wallpaper is very complex with layers of  subtle washes of color for their backgrounds. I used three to four washes to make the design seamless.

Details were extended into the moulding to complete the scene...now, on to the door!

I based the door and then began the layers of washes....all straight acrylic paint thinned with water and wiped back. No glaze.

The layers gave a soft patina of age and depth. Accents of corals were added to the edges and bevels...

A main element of ornament was added to the top panel with small accents in the lower panels...

A bird cage of bamboo was added with songbird and foliage...colors were  a traditional palette..cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, raw sienna, burnt umber, alizarin crimson and bone black

The client designed the birdcage with thatched roof and bamboo design.

 This is a teeny room under the staircase and hard to shoot an interior shot with a camera!

It's always about the details...there are no shortcuts.

I can't wait to see the room with the sconces and mirror hung! It was a lovely project to be involved in.

My Mentors...Kelly Fearing and Gibbs Milliken

Did you ever feel like a square peg in a round hole? Most artists do growing up.

Attending college at the University of Texas was an eye opener for me! There, I found my niche.

Austin, Texas 1976....Eeyore's Birthday Party, Zilker Park and a diverse art department...what more could anyone want?

I was introduced to graphite powder, texture boards, gouache, silverpoint and so much more. I made collages from textures of wood, woven bamboo, even my artist smock was morphed into rock-like formations.

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Kelly Fearing showed me a world of alien landscapes made of layers of texture. He had me create countless texture boards from onion bags, screen netting, the end of bamboo paintbrush and other items pressed into texture medium.

I learned old school....no cell phone, computer, pinterest or facebook for inspiration.  Paper was placed over the texture boards and rubbed with Pentel "japanese crayons" and graphite sticks.

Gibbs Milliken was my life drawing professor for two years. He influenced me with his simple paintings of weeds growing in cracks in the sidewalk and feathers hanging from a string.

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This is acrylic and gold leaf on linen done by Kelly Fearing in 1968.  It is as relevant today as it was in 1968 because he understood the medium and how to manipulate it. I was educated to explore mediums and understand their properties, not to use a "kit"approach and then be frustrated when something goes wrong.

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Gibbs Milliken carved an ink quill for me from a yucca plant, he had learned the technique from native americans and how the yucca stem is absorbent. I still have it and treasure it. He taught me to loosen up with my drawing and to never let a project become "work".

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Kelly Fearing showed me there is art in everything and gave me his passion for color.
 Without these two men, I would not be who I am today. Who's mentoring you?

All Tied up in Knots....!

I love the San Francisco airport...they often have mini exhibits to view while waiting to board a plane.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this exhibit on sailor knotting ! I had seen one of the finest examples of knotting  a few weeks prior to this trip and it had stayed on my mind.

While on ships, sailors got creative with their spare time and developed the art of macramé into an art form.

They would tie the knots over wine bottles, boxes and even the ship's wheel!

Although they had some great examples, none compared with the jug I had seen earlier.

It was in a lamp shop in Little Rock , Arkansas...Lamp Shades Etc.  Those teeny knots called to me from across the room.

Have you ever seen a more exquisite example of sailor knotting? Even the lid has a cap! I swooned! The price was a little out of my budget, but I am optimistic about finding another one in my future. Never underestimate a woman on a mission! I'll let you know if I find another treasure...!

Camera Obscura....

(Canaletto drawing)

Wikipedia defines camera obscura as-"is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen" 

Imagine my surprise when, recently in San Francisco,  I found a working camera obscura! 
 Leonardo da Vinci describes the camera in his notebooks-"In 1490 Leonardo da Vinci gave two clear descriptions of the camera obscura in his notebooks. Many of the first camera obscuras were large rooms like that illustrated by the Dutch scientist Reinerus Gemma-Frisius in 1544 for use in observing a solar eclipse."

The camera was built as a tourist attraction by Floyd Jennings, a San Francisco businessman , on a cliff overlooking Seal Rocks . Life Magazine featured it in their March 1964 issue.

Going inside the darkened room, you are able to view the images of Seal Rocks and the surrounding area.

The building is located just behind the Cliff House on Ocean Beach and is a little worn for wear now.  There are no longer lines of people waiting to enter in this age of digital photography and cellphone cameras, but geeky art-minded people like me still wander in and are amazed with the simplicity and clarity of the images.

The fact that these images are in "real time" with motion of the waves and birds flying, made this a popular tourist attraction in the 1960's.

Being the geek I am , I just purchased a camera lucida, based on the early principle of the camera obscura.  This will be used for transferring images for decorative painting. If your curiosity is peaked, but don't want to spend major bucks....

Yes! There is an app for that!

Strapwork.... with Adrian Card

 (Adrian Card photo)

I just finished a wonderful class with Adrian Card held at the studio of Lynne Rutter in San Francisco. The panel was a strapwork design done in traditional colors with a fabulously rich black background.

(Lynne Rutter photo)

We started our day with a "training wheels" panel , practicing brushstrokes, highlights and shading. Adrian also demonstrated how to paint luminescent jewels.

(Lynne Rutter photo)

We traced our design and began to layer in base color, shadows and highlights, mimicking shiny brass for our strapwork framing. Everything was done in oil paint and with only one round brush...as it would have been in the 16th century.

You can see from this detail of Adrian Card's panel, the design is rich with ornamentation,-draped swags, jewels, urns, birds and other  elements adorn the strapwork framing.

You may remember this panel that Adrian did a few years earlier that I included in an earlier post on strapwork.

These are my panels as class ended...I will finish them soon. Thanks go to Adrian Card for his teaching style and Lynne Rutter for the comfortable and creative environment of her studio!

Zuber's "Decor Chinois"...

I recently was asked to repair a room of Zuber wallpaper that had water damage and pet damage...

"Decor Chinois" was the pattern! First made in 1832, Decor Chinois has 57 colors in the design and came in three colorways-cream, pink and the popular green.

I remember my first visit to the Zuber Paris showroom...I had set up an appointment and buzzed the door to be let in...

There were all of the designs on panels to flip through. Each design was hand carved from pear wood and made into wood blocks. They are kept in a controlled climate and allowed to rest for several years between printing again.

The previous owners had a dog that scratched a large area back to the liner.

I repainted the design and moved on to the water damage...

Three walls had moderate to more extensive water damage from upstairs flooding...

Several panels had multiple water stains running top to bottom through the designs. I painstakingly touched up each flower, bird and leaf in the effected area and then blended the background...ahem, did I mention Zuber is know for their gradation in color on their backgrounds? They start with one tone at the top and become lighter in the middle and then another shade at the bottom.

Decor Chinois is no longer in production.  The pear wood blocks begin to crack and warp after a century of use and must be retired. One of the perks of being a decorative artist is a job like this one....to come full circle from viewing the papers as a young artist and then restoring them to their original beauty, to be appreciated by another generation of art lovers!