Quite a bit ago, I told you about the Sibling Artistry podcasts. Well — it definitely took a bit but we finally got them edited and up on the wonderful House of Faux site. The premiere broadcasts features a three-part series on Marketing & Promotion for Artists. They will also be available on the Talk Faux forum and the Art Fusion networking site. We hope you take a listen, leave a comment and/or give us feedback here.
We already have the next two scheduled with special guests on the topics of Websites and (tentatively) Woodgraining. If you have a subject you’d like us to research and discuss, by all means please let us know. Have a great day!
I grew up in Miami, Florida. It does bring about all that you think it does: good times in South Beach, perpetual sunny weather, outgoing and vivacious personalities, delicious Latin food and great drinks…to name just a few. However, Miami also has hidden gems that a few of the locals know about. One of these is Vizcaya, the former winter home and garden of James Deering. It is now a public museum that is open year-round and is a must-see visit for anyone in the interior design and decorative painting fields.
Last weekend I had a chance to visit it again. (One of the times I visited was during a junior high fieldtrip. They were holding a Renaissance Fair and I went in a toga. Thanks goodness my clueless self didn’t go into the fashion field.) Every time, I see something I haven’t discovered before.
Last year, a Visions of Vizcaya book was put together and sumptuously photographed by Bill Sumner. Here are some of the interior images found in the book.
Hello, Everyone!
I hope you are enjoying the new look of the Fauxology blog. I’m so excited to be back on track and blogging! I want to run by you some of the new updates and changes:
1) The squares above offer Featured Articles. They are chosen at random and will switch if you hit Reload (I did that a bunch of times). If you move your cursor over them, the subject appears and you can click above the title to take you there. Love that.
2) I’ve added Twitter and Facebook buttons so you can find me easily on those sites. Under that, you will see the “Subscribe” button. You can now subscribe to Fauxology via RSS or E-mail – just click on there and pick your poison.
3) Along the top you will also see a Menu. “About” has a bit about our company, Garay Artisans, and “Contact” has all the ways in which you can reach us. The only stalking allowed is on Twitter!
4) All the links will now go to their respective website instead of always staying on Fauxology.com — can’t tell you how happy I am about that! If a post is really long, I’ll put a “more…” link so that it doesn’t take up a ton of space. (BTW, click on the pics and they’ll zoom nicely.) With the switch to the new template, there might be some older posts with the pics all view askew, but I will fine tune those as time goes along. For now, I’ve cleaned up a lot already and you should have many previous posts that look as they should.
5) At some point, I will have ads and sponsorships but I am still deciding the best way to go about it. I also would like to find a beautiful way to incorporate them. All in good time.
6) A big THANK YOU! goes out to Karen Donnelly of Plaid Frog and Mike Jandreau of MJJ Designs. They actually figured out how to talk to me about tech stuff without my head exploding. Putting it simply, they rock.
7) Yes, I like purple.
Tomorrow, we start fresh with new posts. Let me know how you like the new look and if you run across anything I should address. Have a wonderful day!
I’ve started seeing mosaics everywhere. A book that fell on me from my overstuffed library, then on blogs, onwards to Twitter and finally, magazine profiles. It all culminated when my friend Monica brought in a book one day and said “Had this in my car — been meaning to show it to you.” It was The Complete Pebble Mosaic Handbook by Maggy Howarth. At that point, I just threw my hands up and said “OK, Universe, I’ll do something with mosaics!” [I'm SURE the Universe didn't mean for me to give up finishes and start doing mosaics. I love mosaics but they look really intricate and like it takes a million years to master. I'll just stick to appreciating the artistry it requires. :) ]
The book that fell on me was The Mosaic Book by Vance & Goodrick-Clarke. I’ve had it for years and love the visuals. Here are some pics from it and the aforementioned Pebble Mosaic Handbook:
Thought I’d showcase the color Pink this month — some have problems visualizing this color in their home but done well, it can add a warm and vivacious feel. We have a lot of pics to go through so make sure you have on your seatbelt before we take off….here we go!
Wallpaper & Base Paint: (Top Right) The fabric wallpaper is part of Brussel’s Royal Park Theatre, photographed by Hans Fonk and is featured in the magazine, Objekt. (Top Left & Bottom Center) Both base paint pics are both from Elle Decor.
There I was, messing with with TiVo Wishlist when I decided to try the keyword “designer”. Got a slew of nice shows but one network kept coming up over and over: Ovation Television. Their motto? Make Life Creative.
Ovation is an independent network that focuses full-time on “art, culture and creative passions”. According to an interview with COO Ron Garfield, interest in these categories is broad. How broad? “There are roughly 54 million people who attend major league sporting events across the country each year; there are 255 million people that attend an art or art-related event — literally five times as many people…It is a lifestyle, art and how people incorporate art into their lives. We are the only channel that really delivers programming to them.” How in the heck did I miss this channel?
One of my favorite profiles on their network was on Designer People: Anouska Hempel. We work a lot in hospitality projects so it was interesting to find out more about Anouska Hempel, a major figure in international hotel design. Here’s some of her firm’s beautiful work. They include peeks at Blakes London, Danesfield House and The Hempel:
Ovation TV is a fast growing network and they are committed to build upon it. On their home page, there is a zipcode search that allows you to see where you can access their channel. They also have a nice online community (just joined) and a few more press articles you can read. Hope you’ve enjoyed this — be well!
You’d think I have nothing better to do but look up cool sites with all the stuff I’m writing about! Just wanted to pass along a cool site I found: Art Daily. It bills itself The First Art Newspaper on the Net. It talks about galleries, museum exhibits, showcases videos, profiles artisans (both modern and historic) — anything that qualifies as news in the world of Art. You can even subscribe to their newsletter and download beautiful screen savers. It’s a very cool site. Hope you check it out!
Last Saturday, I had plans for lunch with my girlfriends. I was walking into the restaurant when they called and said they were running half an hour late. Walked right back out and went next door to my town’s small library to kill time. Asked for their interior design section and strolled over, not expecting their selection to light up the sky like a flame.
Well, color me Mistaken. They had an incredible selection — books I’ve never heard of, books I’ve been meaning to get, books that were born just to be eye candy. I suddenly remembered my New Year’s Resolution to start using the library more and ran to see about a library card. They explained about unlimited book loans (check!), being able to manage your library account online (check!) and to remember that in August they will be moving to their new location and expanding their selections (checkmate!). The new library will be housed in a brand-new 50,000 square foot building with two floors and will be the largest and most high-tech library in our county. You know those cartoons when the boy character sees the cute girl character and his eyes pop out and you can see his heart beating in his chest? That’s how I felt at that moment. Hundreds and hundreds of design books at my fingertips…I’m. In. Love.
So, I forgot all about my friends at the restaurant until they called. Oops! I ran out with only two book selections – one of them being the Rizzoli-published Casa Florida by Susan Sully and photographer Steven Brooke. It celebrates the Spanish architecture and design here in lovely Florida. Want to see some pics?
I’m glad that Serendipity chose to make a welcome appearance in my life on Saturday. I hope I’ve inspired you to check out your local library. Beautiful resources, right at your fingertips. What could be better?
I’m not exactly sure when I met Jennifer Ferguson online, but I do know that I greatly enjoy our correspondences. I first knew of her years ago when she was a frequent guest of The Carol Duvall Show – she taught how to do these pretty filing cabinets. I’ve since been a fan of her work and thought that I would profile her studio and stencil lines. She also has a few books out with clever titles such as Trashformations: Painted Treasures from Salvaged Stuff and Painted Whimsies.
The Artistic Painting Studio is located in Fresno, CA. Jennifer teaches her workshops using the Faux Effects product line and limits her classes to six students to make sure she has quality time with each student. About her school she says, “I teach everything from basic beginner to advanced techniques in all areas of decorative finishing. Classes include faux finishing and plaster techniques for any surface – some finishes incorporate the art of stenciling but not all.” She has two stencil lines: The Stencilled Garden and The Black & White Collection. Here are a few pictures from her gallery:
Q: Do you have a favorite class?
A: My favorite new classes are the cabinetry and modern/contemporary finishes. We have online samples for each class offered.
Q: How do you go about creating a new stencil line?
A: I’m always drawing down my own ideas or if I see something that inspires me. From this collection of ideas, I start creating line drawings of different designs and sometimes even hand cut stencils to make sure I like the results before sending them to the laser cutter. The last collection I created was called the “Black & White†collection which are all single overlay designs cut in 10mil mylar for the purpose of plasters and heavier based materials. I have many more ideas in my files – I’m hoping to introduce new designs by the end of 2009. (pics following are from the Black & White Collection)
Q: Do you have any favorite websites, blogs and/or message forums?
A: I don’t spend too much time on the Internet – just not enough hours in the day! When I have a moment, I always check out Muralsplus and The Atrium Online. Anyone can go to Muralsplus but you do have to be an IDAL member to belong to Atrium Online – both sites are very informative and comfortable for me. I know many of the community on both sites. I also love to surf for blog sites – I usually start with your site and then just wonder from there, going from one to another.
The above are some of the class sample boards. I do hope you take a moment to look over the Artistic Painting Studio. This month she is also having specials with different stencil designs, so I hope you can take advantage of the offers – savings are savings!
BONUS: Mention “Fauxology” when you purchase a stencil or a studio class and receive an additional 5% off your purchase.
Cool, huh? Thank you, Jennifer! Jennifer also writes a cool newsletter with how-to’s and faux industry updates — sign up on the home page but feel free to check out the newsletter archives. Please be sure to click here to see her class offerings and schedule. She will also be teaching Urban Loft and Artistic Cabinetry at the IDAL Convention in Memphis, TN – it’s her 15th year teaching at the convention. I’m glad we had the opportunity to interview her — hope you enjoyed our brief talk and that you take advantage of the extra savings offered this month! We’ll talk soon!
Our recent post on column finishes inspired me to pass along info on a handy tool. I personally call them “column rollers” but if you’re looking for even more details, they’re really known as pipe painters. [I'm just telling you this since Google insists on, like, the actual word in order to give you the information seeked. For instance, who knew they'd prefer "USB Drive" instead of "need the scuttlebutt on that thing that comes in cute shapes and plugs into my laptop so I can transfer info from it". Toma-toe, toma-tow Google. ;) Funnily enough, search engines may soon start becoming more perceptive. But, I digress.] Here’s a few visuals:
I used to use paint brushes for columns but they tend to leave behind brush marks. Plus, whenever we had columns butted up right against a wall, it was a bit of a hassle. (i.e., Curving your hand behind the column in that tiny space, the brush handle hitting the opposite walls, missed blind spots, clients hearing you curse…) We considered spraying — actually a great option if the conditions are right — but the prepwork for that can use up a lot of time and protective materials. This tool makes it super easy and quick to paint the columns well. Here’s my handy dandy mathematical formula:
Brush < Column Rollers = Sprayers
Manufacturers to look into are Purdy, Pipe Painter and Krylon. I got mine at my local faux finishing store, Star Scenic, and it looks like the top pic with the wood handle. It works by picking up the paint with its five removable roller covers and bends itself around any column or cylinder. The handles provide easy maneuvering and they come in various sizes. There are also refills available and you can load the rollers up on a large tray (just like regular paint rollers). These are great for when you need to prime or base a large column or work on smaller areas such as the newel posts or balusters of a staircase.
“Talk” to you soon!
All pictures used are from linked websites.
