Agua Vista Park

Agua Vista park, with a view of San Francisco's last remaining drydock (near Pier 20) and the recently closed steelworks.

A few months ago, I started taking my lunch down the street to a nice little spot called Agua Vista Park, which is just north of my studio in the old American Can warehouse. I've all but ignored this public park for years and years, and often when I walked by its gates were locked.

Agua Vista is just next to the Ramp restaurant, which seems to have added a few tables out back to take advantage of this space.
In the last years, the city's Green Trust has made an effort to clean up some of the bay access and "parks" along the central waterfront. [This included painting over some fine graffiti art in Warm Water Cove a few blocks to the south.]

Places like these are wonderful finds, and in my neighborhood it tends to be sunny and pleasant near the water quite often. Abandoned cranes, old brick factories, and WWII-era concrete waste, has slowly turned into a haven for birds and the start of tide pools. The gritty, industrial backdrop of these little spots make for an interesting view.

I am going to enjoy them while I can.

Marvelous books from Editions Vial

I seem to have amassed a considerable library, the majority (by volume) of which are design and architectural books. A large number of the most amazing and useful décor books in my library come from the French publisher, Editions H. Vial.

I have hunted these books which are, with rare exception, inexplicably unavailable via the "usual" US outlets, but I have had the good fortune of acquiring a number of them in person, at the fabulous bookstore of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and at the recent Chicago gathering of the International Salon of Decorative Painters, where Vial premiered the new (bilingual) book of decorative painting techniques by master trompe l'oeil artist  Michel Nadaï.

Michel was good enough to inscribe a copy of his book for me.

Michel Nadai's book as well as many others in Vial's catalogue are available in the U.S. through  Pierre Finklestein's on-line shop.

 

some my favorites are:

Art and Techniques of Grottesque

Identifying Marble
Decoration de Bois et Marbres
Chefs d'OEvre des Marqueteurs
Modeles de Peinture Polychrome sur Meubles
Meubles et Décors Peints

Painting the Van der Kellen Way /  Imitations et décors à l'école Van der kelen   from the prestigious Van der Kelen Institut supérieur de peinture.

  

Lynne Rutter Studio

Trompe l'oeil faux travertine casings

Trompe l'oeil to the rescue!
In our current project, the huge windows of the two-story living room have somewhat undersized casings.

So we enlarged them, with a faux travertine finish and some trompe l'oeil egg and dart mouldings.

<------ Samples of the faux finishes

The stone finish makes the casings feel more substantial, and the additional border helps balance the size of the large windows.


To create the travertine finish, a coat of glaze (raw umber + white) is painted over an off-white eggshell finish paint.
A piece of pleated tissue paper is laid on the wet glaze, then smoothed over with a tooth spalter, and quickly removed.
This is repeated with a lighter coloured glaze on top.
This technique gives a fairly convincing textured effect similar to a foro romano travertine limestone.


The egg-and-dart moulding is created using a stencil to block in the "shadow" areas. Additional details are painted in by hand. in this way we can make each one slightly different so they don't look too new or machine-made
Warm white highlights are added as well as some shadows on the wall around the new "casings."
Subtle trompe l'oeil "joints" in the casings help make them look more convincingly assembled from carved stone.




The finished windows have more support for their size
and lend some classic Italian atmosphere to the room.

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Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

America

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This image has been on my mind lately.

detail from the frescoes in Sant'Ignazio Church, Rome
painted by Andrea Pozzo, circa 1698

photo by Lynne Rutter April, 2008

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Marouflage Ceiling in progress

Sierra touching up the canvas after install

122 hand painted ornaments, 28 canvases, 12 colors of paint, 5 rolls of 22k ribbon gold leaf...

This week we started to hang the "Italian Ceiling" which we have been painting on canvas in the studio for the last several months.








I am elated that my fabulous installer Peter Bridgman, who has been living in Florence the last year or more studying art restoration techniques, came home just in time to help me with this project.

coffers, being sized before canvasing

Each ceiling panel is pasted with clay based adhesive and allowed to dry. The back of the canvas is then moistened with water, and a second, fat coat of paste put on the ceiling just before the canvas is applied.

marouflage installation in progress

In the longest panel we found that the chandelier electrical box was not actually in the center. Bad news, since an elaborate rosette was painted for the center. This is always a danger when painting canvases for ceilings that have not yet been framed. No matter what the carpenters tell you about how perfect their measurements are, they are never, ever correct. That's why the design of this ceiling incorporated a lot of "bleed" on the outside edges.

Peter's technique is to find the "priority" edge and work from there. Sometimes the priority is the "center", and sometimes is the spot that makes the ornament line up with the ornament in the next coffer. Some pulling and adjusting and language is usually needed. Most of the panels, however, seem to smooth out like butter on bread.

trimming the canvas and adding some final touches

Once the canvases are smoothed into place they are left to rest while they tighten; they are then trimmed neatly to fit perfectly. My assistants and I paint the lighting trim, vent covers, etc. to match, and touch up or embellish wherever needed.


After today the false floor that allowed us access to this part of the 22 foot high ceiling is being removed, so we were in a crush to get that area finished.
Next week we will install the remaining 17 ceiling panels, and start working on the walls! stay tuned....


Marouflage is in the glossary!

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting