30.7.09

Its been a while since I posted......life's been busy, and now I'm about to move back to Florida! Can't believe it but I got a one bedroom apartment on the intracoastal for almost $300 less than I'm paying here for just a studio apartment. I'm so into reducing the stress I've had for the last few years. My truck will be paid off in a little over a month and now a low rent, I feel like I can breath again.
I'll be posting some new pictures next week.....I've got another mural to do...Lake Como in a powder room, I can't wait to start it. I love doing kids rooms but I really miss doing the more sophisticated stuff.
I'm also back at the Hospital of The University of Pennsylvania putting the long overdue final touches on the mural I did in the pediatric intensive care unit. Remember this one done down both sides of that loooooog hallway? I've now gone through some double doors and continuing the artwork down another hallway! I'll finish up there this weekend and start the Lake Como mural on Monday.

21.7.09

A few more tweaks til done

Just a few more little touches to do and this one will be finished. I just want to point out that I lowered the horizon line in this work on purpose, an example of one of the times you might want to do this. I wanted this to be more kid friendly and was more interested in how they would view the mural.
They decided to hang swinging doors in the arched entrance to the 'playhouse'...the kind you see on saloons in old westerns :-)....and I have them with me to do a distressed, weathered, louvered treatment on them and will take them back later this week and add a few more elements to the mural work while I'm there. The archway is now the entrance to the 'Showers'.Here are the two sketches I had given them when bidding on this job. Part of their request was to have the arched opening be the entrance to the shack, with the windows being part of the structure ...... I couldn't figure out how to do that without turning that whole side wall into a building and I didn't want to do that so I went a different route and created a trompe l'oeil door to the 'shack'. Turned out they didn't want that wall to the right painted, so that was the first thing that altered the design, but they wanted to see more beach/water, so the left side of the shack changed from foliage/vines to more beach. And I had given them the option of distressed wood or bamboo, and they choose bamboo, so that was another change. They didn't want the 'sign' to go all the way up to the ceiling, and I confess to borrowing heavily for the new design. There was a last minute request for a waterfall, so that had to be squeezed in there somewhere.
You can see how sometimes things can change when working with your clients. And I have to tell you, this was a charming young couple, blessed with twin girls (God bless em ...lol), and they were a joy to work with.

19.7.09

FINALLY A MURAL GIG

Started yesterday working on a children's mural in a finished basement playroom. The client sent photos of the area to be done.
Under the stairs is a little playhouse area. You can see the windows built into the wall for them to peek through and in the very left of the picture above you can just see the arched doorway entrance into the play area. Below is another shot of the entrance.The theme they requested was Hawaiian tropical and they had specific elements they wanted incorporated.
Here we are after two days. The first area is only an hour or two from finished and then tomorrow I will be attempting to begin and complete the second area around the entrance.

IT FEELS GREAT TO BE PAINTING AGAIN!!!!!!!!

12.7.09

Spent most of the day working on the dog and cat site, looking for products to create. I've gotten two inquiries about mural work this past week.....one looking to have Lake Como done around his powder room walls and another looking for a beach theme for their twins room. I've sent pictures and a quote to the first and haven't heard back yet. I receive photos of the room from the second one, but couldn't open the attachment so I'm waiting hoping they will send them in a different format.

10.7.09

OK......no one wanted to make offers on the works below, so I've marked them at prices that hopefully will have them sold quickly......gotta clean out the studio :-)