Posts Tagged ‘Decorative Artist’
If you are a decorative artist in San Diego or are contemplating dipping your paint brush into the world of Faux Finishes, then consider yourself lucky. San Diego has a wealth of resources for the aspiring decorative artist. This article will be one in a series describing the kind of resources available both in terms of artistic education and raw materials available.
I’ll cover everything from Venetian Plaster to stencils to glazes and even some innovative uses of metallic foils and other decorative textures. Decorative painting, be necessity, has become something of generic term these days. The Faux Finish artist can now incorporate several new materials and techniques into his or her portfolio and San Diego as you will discover is just the place to learn these techniques.
I will also detail a few interesting ways of using textured materials that yield finishes that can be elegant and or rustic, using inexpensive materials from Home Depot. I’ll incorporate metallic paints with glazes and stencils with Venetian Plaster and foils with stains and on and on.
Along the way, I will give you a list a schools in and around the San Diego area that teach faux finish techniques and sell a variety of decorative painting and venetian plaster materials, I’ll also throw in my assessment of their “value”.
Stay tuned, there will be a lot to learn and benefit from in the coming weeks.
The Shaw penthouse property located in downtown San Diego could easily be described as exotic or surreal or extravagant and still the description could be considered inadequate. It surely is a one of kind property in San Diego. The penthouse located atop the north tower of the Renaissance condominium complex could rival the Hearst castle in luxury.
In 2004, I was living in Barcelona Spain where I was teaching workshops in faux finishes. At the request of a fellow decorative artist that I had met there, I agreed to be part of the team of artisans assembled to work on this project. My background was in decorative finishes and textures for hi end homes.
My first assignment was to give the window casements a gold and silver leafed treatment. The windows were standard issue and painted an industrial grey. Boring to say the least. Some 12,000 sheets of gold and silver leaf later the windows radiated a bright metallic glow. Left as they were, the finish on the windows was much to harsh and needed to be toned down. I created glazes using Burnt Umber colorant for the gold leaf and Raw Umber for the silver leaf. Once the leafing was applied and allowed to dry overnight, I sealed the leafing with a top coat of satin polyurethane. Once this dried the glazes were applied with foam brush and stippled using a large stipple brush. The photos show the now warm glow of a muted metallic effect. 
