Italian Tile Border

This was done in my chiropractor's office (Dr. Michelle McCoy in Jefferson Valley, NY). She has been treating me for almost 4 years. I asked her if I could paint the wall in front of their receptionist desk. She agreed and left the design up to me. My chiropractor and her husband (who share an office together) are into being all natural, she is italian, they love earth tones - so, I thought that these italian tiles would be perfect for their space. They love it!

Ribbon and Flowers Mural

I was inspired to do this mural by a book that I read recently called "Creative Kid's Murals You Can Paint" by Suzanne Whitaker. The artist / author had done something similar for a baby nursery. Of course, I changed things up a bit and made it my own. I did this mural for my church's infant nursery. I did burgundy & pink flowers to tie in the burgundy carpeting that was already on the bottom part of the wall.

Hand-painted Clouds on a Ceiling

This was for a little boy's room. His mom plans on hanging large antique airplanes from the ceiling.

Under Water Fish Mural

I just finished this mural today for one of Westchester ARC's group homes for the severely disabled, in Mohegan Lake, NY. The wall was already painted this blue color - the director wanted me use it as the base color for the mural. As you can see, the mural does not cover the entire wall, they plan to put up a chair rail moulding and paint the bottom a light beige to match the rest of the room.

I had a great time painting this mural, especially knowing that it was for a good cause. We are hoping that it will be therapeutic and a great stimulation for the men and women who will be living in this home.

Click on each picture to enlarge.

Old World Plaster Finish

Old World Plaster is one of my favorite textured faux finishes. There are several types of plaster. Some are smooth and some have a rough/sandy texture. I like to use the smooth finish plaster. It is achieved in four different steps. First the plaster is troweled onto the walls. The second step is lightly sanding with a fine grit sanding pad. I then base coat the walls with 2-3 coats of latex satin or pearl finish paint. Any color can be used according to your taste. I often use a lighter tone so the glaze shows up more. The last step is the glazing. It is always done with a darker color. I use a square kitchen sponge (dipped into a bucket of water then rung out)and wash it into the texture of the plaster in a circular motion. I then wipe the glaze off the wall, so that most of the glaze settles into the recessed areas of the plaster. The glaze brings an antique look to the wall. The Old World Plaster paint finish can easily cover any simple imperfections that were previously in the wall. This beautiful and rich faux finish gives the wall so much dimension and character.

Murals & Faux Finishing Gallery Site

I have recently signed up for an awesome photo gallery site designed specifically for murals & faux finishes. I have posted several pictures of my work and it has been an awesome place to use as reference. The nice part, too, is that other artists can post comments about your work. In order to see full size images, the cost is $29.95 per year, which isn't too bad.

Click here to check it out

Some website re-vamping

I started re-vamping my Faux Finishes page on my website. http://www.surfaceswithpaint.com/faux_finishes.htm. You can now click on each sample and see it enlarged. I only have 9 thus far on the page, but I will be adding more as I create and design them. I have started from scratch creating new samples on polystyrene sheets as opposed to the foam board that I was once using. What a difference!! For those of you faux painters out there, I am open to suggestion on what types of faux finishes I should be including. I have the basics thus far, but I am eager to add more. I will start researching through my oodles of great books this week. Thanks everyone for your support!

Here is a picture of one of my samples - a marble finish.

Puppet Theater Mural

I just finished working on a fun project - a 4' x 4' puppet theater that my customer has made for her two twin nieces. They asked me to fun, whimsical, yet realistic flowers. They brought the piece to me already painted the same yellow as the girl's bedroom (you can see it through the opening in the pictures below) I suggested painting it over so instead of blending into the walls, it would stand out. I chose to do background colors of blue and green as a backdrop for the mural, blue for the sky and green for the land.

After doing the background color, I painted the clouds. Then I painted the green of the grass, leaves, and flower stems. The flowers and butterfly's were last.
You can click on the pictures to enlarge.

We now have a mailing list!

I have been doing a lot of updates to my website. http://www.surfaceswithpaint.com We now have a mailing list that you can sign up to receive email updates, news on recent projects, new pictures in the picture galleries, and notifications when new posts have been added to our blog. Please sign up at www.surfaceswithpaint.com/mailing_list.htm