Life Portrait Art & Beyond
Arty Finishes
Trowelled glazes and acrylic wax
Adding elements to your surface gives many nice places for faux grunge to collect
Samples, variations, lots of options
We have beautiful rust here in Chicago - check out the underpasses for inspiration
Call it grunge, call it birch. Lots of product, looks great, versatile... can adjust color palette, repairable.
Turn some pale grunge sideways and what do you know, it looks like birch
Bright textured stencil of a flower with grungy rust
Mancave texture, no?
More grit for the Mancave
modern gas fireplace, finish over drywall
Standard faux finishes are great for adding some color and texture. Same idea as wallpaper, except you get all that nice ability to customize your color, texture, pattern size etc.
We're happy to use some of these ideas and textures in making your piece.
Glazes
Add a little depth without breaking the bank. A one or two layer glaze can add interest to a wall and bring in some of those tones you're using elsewhere. Or make a small table quite vibrant with a faux marble top.
simple solutions for large and background spaces
Trowelled on plasters
Venetian plasters are coming back. This is a method - not a product. Traditionally with the real Italian lime plasters (yum), or with the modern acrylic plasters. Clay plaster is another interesting eco-option. All kinds of variations, colors, use of stencils for pattern, imbedding, shiny or matte.
For a more sophisticated look
Stencils
Don't make a face, you can do magwondrous stuff with stencils.
Repeatable, repeatable, repeatable. All kinds of uses with plasters, paint, size & foils. The power to imitate wallpaper, get nice crisp edges, block out areas to control application.
But wait, there's more... the thing about artists is we just have to mess with the way things are done. Troublesome curs, but there you have it. So I've got a few special tricks I like to do with faux finishes that go beyond the standard stuff. If you're a designer or have a creative bent yourself I'm happy to work with you & we can figure out how to get the color and feeling you envision for your space. And yes, I have 10,000 samples of different things.
Leafy Finish
You can change the density of this finish to highlight or weight an area, then drift off into a softer finish in the spaces you'd like the wall to stay quiet. Sometimes we want our cake as well as getting to eat it. Here you go - feature wallspace wherever you want it, soft transitions, no wasting money on detail where it isn't going to be seen.
From dappled to jungle, have the forest flow around the room
Grunge! So darn cool!
Chicago has many great examples of good looking grunge... but I think fake is better than real in this case. Faux a finish with products that can fake anything from aged zinc to copper patina, cracked concrete to ingrained dirt. Yum! It gets even more interesting when you add in some of the classic pretty stuff, like gold or silver foils, or the sparklies of a bead mix. Give us a call - major creative possibilities here.
Wear, tear, dirt, grime, erosion... but just the pretties, not for real.
Wild Rollers
Repetition that frazzles at the edges. A rippling/waterwashed/woven fabric effect that is quick and vibrant. Adds a little Oomph to your ombre.
Sort of repeated, sort of random
Bead Mixes ***NEW***
Many recipes of glam to choose from, and we're still figuring out all the cool things we can do with this stuff. In its standard life it gets trowelled on (makes a barrel ceiling very awesome) - but it can also be put through stencils or integrated into other finishes to give more bang for your buck. And this one is bucks - expensive stuff - but it also LOOKS it, which is the point.
Shiny sparkly glam of beads and glitter finally find a way to look classy