Mural Repair in Canton, MA

February 08, 2017

When my clients Brett and Kristen bought their home in Canton many years ago, they surprised themselves by falling in love with a golf-themed mural that had been painted in their downstairs bathroom. For years they enjoyed the mural, until a leak unfortunately required the plumber to cut two holes in the middle of one section of the mural. The patches left two roughly 1-foot square white spots – and Brett and Kristen thought they lost their mural for good.

Serendipitously, I Brett and I met before they decided to paint over the entire mural. Upon hearing that I paint (and repair!) murals, he had me come check out the project. In addition to the two holes, I also noticed a vent covering that had rusted and suggested we replace it and re-paint that to match as well. Brett had conservative expectations, comparing the matching of someone else’s painting with matching someone else’s handwriting – but I assured him I could get close!

The first step is matching the colors. To get close, I use paint swatch books, holding different colors up to the mural to get the best match possible. Since murals have blended colors, however – this can only get me so far. Fortunately, I have accumulated a vast library of different colors of paint – so I brought a selection with me that enabled me to mix the colors onsite.

The next challenge is to match the technique. The muralist who did the original painting used a lot of glaze washes and different brushes to get the textures of the sky, grass and trees. I brought a spare board with me to test techniques that I thought would match, giving me good confidence in my approach when I started on the wall.

In the end, Brett and Kristen were shocked at how seamless the match was – and how happy they were that I had “saved” their mural!

Enjoy!

Jason

Harry Potter "Photo Station"/ Mural Panel in Wellesley, MA

January 31, 2017

Just last weekend, the Wellesley Free Library (in Wellesley, MA) hosted a great mini-golf event, and they contacted me about adding some fun to the event with a “photo station” or “selfie station”.

The “selfie station” is a new term, but the concept is the age-old approach of creating a scene on a board with a hole for kids to insert their faces for great snapshots. In talking with the director for the event, her guidance was for the scene to be related to a book for children, but the rest was up to me!

After some thinking and collaborating with my family, we settled on Harry Potter as a popular draw for kids of all ages. With that decided, I then needed to figure out which scene I was going to paint... I also wanted to add an interactive element – which led me to think of the sorting hat scene!

My idea was to create a mechanism for kids to choose which house the sorting hat calls out for their photo in the selfie station. To do this, I cut an additional hole in the board for the house name and mounted a wheel behind it, so kids could turn the wheel and reveal their house of choice. I included a picture of the back of the board (below) to show how this worked.

Knowing that many kids of all ages would be interacting with this, I was also concerned about safety. To make sure the board was stable and secure, I used the largest brackets I could find to mount the board to 2 pieces of 3-foot long landscaping timber. As a result, the board did not move at all when it was assembled!

Then I was on to the designing and painting of the mural. I wanted enough detail to tell the full story of the sorting , with the castle interior, night sky and of course Dumbledor – but I also wanted to keep it simple enough to avoid clutter. I ended up with the design below, which ended up being a hit with the kids at the event (as well as the ones in my house!)

Enjoy!

Jason

The brackets and supports kept everything stable!

Painted Furniture!

January 27, 2017

Painting furniture can take on many different “stripes” – from unique, specialty finishes to pieces painted a straight-forward single color. A few of myrecent projects are good examples of this range!

The first example is a collection of dining room chairs. The chairs I started with were great, solid chairs that were just a bit dated looking- with a tired, yellowed oak finish (see below).

My clients are moving the chairs to their sea-side home in Plymouth, so they wanted something light in color that would go with the “ocean” look. They also need to go along with the dining table I did for this same client a few months ago (picture below).

Working with their fantastic interior designer, we came up with a subtle “driftwood” look, using varying shades of light, brownish-gray. I first painted the darker shade, and then using a thinned version of the lighter color, I created the wood-like pattern. Because it was subtle, it was hard to catch in a photograph, but the pictures below give an idea of how they turned out. Most importantly, the client loves them!

The final paint finish showing pattern detail

The second example is an old mirror for the same client. The mirror has a great relief pattern around the frame that my client loves, but the dark color did not go with their new space.

When considering options, I wanted to make sure anything we did highlighted the floral pattern, so I suggested using two colors, with a lighter color “rubbed” over the relief pattern. The space where the mirror is hung is a clean, modern room – so I wanted the final result to balance on a fine line between the “antique” of the mirror and the “fresh” of the room. The colors we chose pick up on colors in their room, and I used a lightly tinted wax finish to hint at age without being too heavy-handed. Again, the result was a hit!:

The last example is more straight-forward, but equally impactful. My client moved into a new home and had 2 media cabinets that fit perfectly on either side of their chimney (over which the television is mounted). The only problem was that the finish of the cabinets before I started (below) did not go with the clean, bright look of the room.

To address this, we painted them a simple white – and the result looked great!

When trying to fit old furniture into a new space – consider paint!!

Enjoy!

Jason

A Bright, Bold Statement Wall

January 27, 2017

My most recent client Terry called me when he finally got tired of looking at the same big, drab wall while walking down the stairs of his home.

Because of the position of the wall, it never looked right to hang a picture – but with the family staring at it every morning on the way to start their day, Terry definitely wanted to make it a dynamic feature in their home.

Doing a mural in the space was a great solution, but we needed to figure out what the mural needed to be! Terry wanted the colors to be bright and cheery- with blues, oranges and yellows (but no greens!). He liked the idea of alluding to beach, water, waves and sunrise – but he wanted it to be abstract and not a realistic ocean scene. Most importantly, he wanted it to be an experience where he would see something new in it each time he looked, and everybody in the house would have their own impressions.

As we collaborated about ideas, I shared my recent “Statement Walls” using patterns from nature. Terry liked the concept, and I started to share patterns from pieces of agate with suggestions for edits to achieve the look he was going for. We settled on a pattern that had the sense of churning water in the foreground with mountains and atmosphere in the background. Below is the picture of the agate:

I then edited some of the patterning and colors to dial in the look and feel to capture what Terry was looking for and did a concept painting to scale:

Terry loved what he saw, with just a few edits to some of the colors. From there, I was on to the wall!

Below is the final result, which hit the nail on the head of what Terry wanted!

Enjoy!

Jason

A Dog Portrait for Christmas

December 23, 2016

With the holidays rapidly approaching, my client Sue Ellen found herself in the familiar place of needing to find that special gift for her husband John.

Sue Ellen and John love their pets, and each dog they have had over the years is honored with a picture on their wall. As Sue Ellen was thinking about how their current (and beloved!) dog Winslow is getting on in years, she thought of taking things to another level and honoring Winslow with a portrait! Since John is extremely attached to Winslow, Sue Ellen knew this would be the perfect gift.

As she looked through her pictures, her favorite was one that was taken at the vet’s office. It is a great picture of Winslow, and we decided to use colors from Sue Ellen and John’s living room in the background to make the painting look more like a formal portrait and to put all of the attention on Winslow. Even better than just a good picture, I also got to meet Winslow! Being able to interact with him (he is super-sweet dog) made it easier and more fun to make sure my painting "captured" him.

I delivered the painting to Sue Ellen today and she loves it - sharing that I "captured his spirit" (a huge compliment)! Now she can’t wait to give it to John (and I can’t wait to hear about his reaction!)

Enjoy!

Jason

Gold (Ceiling) for Christmas!

December 22, 2016

Are you looking to enhance a room? Consider a specialty finish on the ceiling!

When my client Sara was re-doing her dining room in Brookline, she was thrilled with the warmth of the red color she chose for the walls – at least until the ceiling was painting a cold, stark white. The coolness of the ceiling white was accentuated by the fact that the trim was a warm off-white. In the end, she felt that any warmth she had gained from the walls was taken away by the “chill” of that ceiling!

Sara and her family lived with the room for a while, as she considered her options for getting the room back to her original vision. After looking around, she decided to go with a gold called “Pale Luster Gold” which would bring in the warmth, but would not overwhelm the rest of the room due to the subtle, soft gold color. Adding to the interest, Sara chose to go with a “hammered metal” finish as opposed to just doing a flat metallic.

Painting metallic can be tricky, so Sara’s house painter chose to pass on the job – which is when she called me! I had done the hammered metal finish before, so I knew how to make the finish look right (hint – following the instructions doesn’t necessarily do it!)

An additional challenge we had were some sizable sagging cracks in the ceiling. These were the kind of cracks that couldn’t just be patched without replacing or re-plastering the ceiling, so Sara decided to leave it.

In the end, the color was perfect to achieve exactly what Sara was looking for! We also found that the slightly mottled look of the hammered metal finish actually looked better with the ceiling cracks than the white did – giving it almost a look of parchment.

It helped too that we got it done in time for Christmas!

Below are some before and after pictures of the project.

Enjoy!

Jason

Portrait of Beloved Family Dog "Rosie"

December 16, 2016

I have said this in my blog before, but the diversity of what I do is one of my favorite things! After my 15’x16’ and 5’x8’ mural projects, it was fun to get back into my studio and do this intimate little 8”x10” dog portrait.

The best part about commissioned art is talking with my clients about images that are special to them, which was the case when I connected with my latest client Gretchen. Gretchen and her husband have a small “collection” of portraits of the dogs they have had over the years, but their current dog Rosie had not yet had her portrait done! Gretchen is actually the sister of another client that I did a dog portrait for (“Gus”) and she wanted “Rosie” done in the same style to make her Rosie portrait stand out in the crowd.

We began the process with Gretchen sending a few different photos, and I started looking at them in terms of the quality of the photo and the composition of the shot. It wasn’t until Gretchen focused instead on who Rosie is that we settled on this final shot. While some of the other pictures were great, this shot of her inside on the couch was perfect – as Rosie so prefers to be indoors that her family nickname is “Hothouse Rosie”

Having the additional photos is still a big help, however. I find when I do any kind of portrait (dog, human or otherwise), the more views I have of my subject, the more I can get a sense of what distinctive features they have that really make them look like them!

With the picture chosen, I did some cropping and editing to get a good composition and started my painting! For this piece, the expression on Rosie’s face and the texture of her fur were key to get the “look” correct.

Now that it is complete, Rosie is waiting to be a gift from Gretchen to her husband. I look forward to hearing his response!

Enjoy!

Jason

A Bold New Approach to the "Feature Wall" or "Statement Wall"

December 12, 2016

As people look to freshen up their interior spaces, it can be a great idea to highlight one wall in a room as an “accent” wall by adding a different color, wallpaper or even different materials. Taking this approach can add interest to a space or draw attention to an area where you want the focus to be.

Taking this to the next level is the “feature wall” or “statement wall”. Rather than just an accent, the goal with a statement wall is to add an entirely different level of “pop” or even “wow!” to a room. There are some great wallpapers available that are being used to create just such a “wow” affect – but paper has its limitations. With paper, you have to work with patterns and colors that are already available – meaning you often need to make the room work around your choice of paper, rather than vice-versa. Paper is also problematic in bathrooms due to moisture.

To address this, I set out to create a mural concept that would be bold and graphic – with an eye on modern decor. I also wanted to play with the "outside in" trend of bringing outdoor elements into interior decor (which is also right up the alley of what I do in my fine art).

The concept is to take patterns from nature (wood, leaves, agate, marble, water, etc) and magnify them to the point where it becomes almost abstract, but still recognizable. I am also separating the colors and values in these patterns into distinct breaks to create a cleaner final look.

The result accomplishes that desired “wow!” affect with a clean, bold presence - while also being tailored to fit the space. For each Statement Wall mural, everything is customized – from the pattern, to the colors, to the placement and orientation!

Below are three recent examples (one added 1/24). The wood pattern/ bedroom statement wall is 15 feet by 16 feet, the metallic silver marble pattern/ bathroom statement wall is 5 feet by 8 feet and the agate pattern/stairwell statement wall is 3 feet by 9 feet. While these show a glimpse into the concept, the sky (and your imagination) is the limit for how it could look in your space!

Marble pattern Statement Wall (with metallic silver)

Enjoy!

Jason

A Portrait as a Christmas Gift

December 02, 2016

After years of gift-giving, the challenge of coming up with a memorable Christmas gift for his wife is what brought my client Bob to reach out to me.

Bob and his wife have a 5”x4” photo from a wedding that is a favorite of theirs, but the small size, dark setting and cluttered background limited its display to a small table-top frame among other family snapshots.

To elevate the picture to the level of a special gift, Bob asked if I could transform the picture into a 20”x16” painted portrait. To make it look more like a formal portrait, Bob wanted me to remove the clutter from the background and brighten the entire image. To help with this, Bob shared pictures of the room where it would hang to help decide on the color of the background. I also made some subtle edits to make the pose and composition fit Bob’s goal of being a traditional portrait.

Initially, Bob was skeptical that I could produce what he was looking for, but he was thrilled when he saw the final painting! To help finish it off perfectly, I joined Bob at the framers to help pick out a frame that nicely complements that painting and fits with the décor of the room where the painting will hang.

With a few weeks yet to go, Bob is ready and excited to present this special present!

Enjoy!

-Jason

Paint Restoration of a Patio

November 16, 2016

Some of my favorite projects to work on are paint restoration jobs – where I use paint to “patch” everything from wallpaper to bricks to pre-existing paint finishes… and now to outdoor patio pavers!

One of my clients is a painting contractor who unfortunately had some white paint splatter on their client’s backyard patio of grey pavers. The splatters themselves were not too large, but there were a couple of places where they tried to wipe them out – making the blemish even larger! Because the paint could not be removed, the painters were concerned their only option would be to replace the pavers…. until they called me.

By matching paint to the many varied colors and patterns in the pavers, I was able to re-create the existing look over the top of both the smaller splatters and the larger, wiped areas. When the painting foreman cam back to see my work, he could no longer find the spots – saying “You saved the day!”. Most importantly, the homeowner was happy with the results and could enjoy their freshly painted house (and patio!).

Below are some before and after pictures from this project.

A Commissioned Painting as a Special Birthday Gift

November 16, 2016

When I met my client Aubrey this past July, she was already planning a special gift for her boyfriend Vito’s birthday in December! Aubrey and Vito had a trip to Italy planned for September, where they would be visiting Vito’s hometown of Cirigliano. Because Vito has a special attachment to Cirigiano and is an art enthusiast, Aubrey decided to have a commissioned painting done of the town to give Vito a present he would cherish.

After returning from Italy, Aubrey shared her pictures from the trip, and we met to review the different images and talk about what she was looking for in her painting for Vito. We settled on the picture below because it shows the entire town while also capturing the incredible vista surrounding it.

I did research online to look at other pictures of the town, but I found that the beautiful afternoon light in Aubrey’s picture made it the best source to work from. In translating the photo to a painting, we decided to eliminate the vegetation in the foreground and to lighten up the image to make the town more visible and emphasize the warm light.

Below is the final 24”x12” painting! The painting is at the framer and Aubrey is counting the days until she can share this special gift!

Enjoy!

Jason

Beautiful Faux Paint Finishes in Wellesley

October 20, 2016

My client Louise was in the process of renovating her new condo in Wellesley when she reached out to me. She and her husband are downsizing from their house and wanted to put some personal touches to their beautiful new condo to make it feel like home.

When we first began to look at the space, Louise envisioned a faux marble finish for the entry hallway and great room/kitchen (all of which was painted a medium tan color). While I agreed that this finish could make for a pretty room, I was concerned about it being too much in such a large space. Also, the kitchen counter and backsplash already had patterns and textures that would look busy with faux marble.

Understanding that Louise wanted something ornate, but that the room called for something a bit more subtle than the faux marble, we began to look through pictures of past projects I have done. When Louise saw the “Polished Patina” library I did in Lexington, she was sold! This finish has a soft brushed look to it – like venetian plaster crossed with suede. To work with the rest of her décor, we chose a lighter finish called “Rock Crystal”, which has just a touch of gold fleck in it.

When we looked at the master bedroom, Louise had envisioned doing vertical stripes. I agreed that the stripes could look fantastic – but, the room has gabled ceilings that create complex angles where they intersect. Doing stripes on these surfaces would have created odd shapes no matter how they were painted – making an unintentional “fun house” look. While brainstorming, Louise suggested a strie finish – which I agreed would look great!

Finally, Louise’s designer Cathy suggested another custom finish for the tray ceiling in the entry hall. To pick up on the slight shimmer of the Polished Patina, Cathy suggested a mottled gold and silver finish.

All 3 finishes are complete, and Louise is thrilled! She now doesn’t want to hang anything on the walls to cover up what she says is now her favorite part of her new home!!

Below are before and after shots of the room…

Enjoy!

Jason

Triptych Mural Panels

September 20, 2016

How do you follow up on a 48”x32” mural panel? With 3 more 21”x30” mural panels making up a “triptych”! (As Wikipedia explains, a triptych is “a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections”)

The Seaman Engineering mural panel triptych

Back in May, I finished my 48”x32” mural panel (pictured below) for Seaman Engineering in Auburn, MA. The team at Seaman Engineering is in the process of redesigning their office - and after hanging this centerpiece in their conference room, they wanted more paintings for the main room of the office. I was introduced to Seaman by Linda Sbrogna of Sbrogna’s Artistic Promotions, and she suggested a triptych to fill a larger space while keeping a common theme across the office.

The first mural panel, displayed in Seaman Engineering's conference room

Since Seaman’s engineering business conveniently covers three main areas of expertise (HVAC, fire protection and plumbing), I suggested we start with the concept of having each mural panel focus on one of these areas, while tying them together with themes of engineering and the Seaman brand.

To make sure my ideas aligned with my client’s vision, I met with my contact Debra at Seaman to start collaborating on images for the murals. Deb shared that she wanted the panels to depict the ocean and to have their logo across all 3 paintings. For more ideas of images we could use, Deb suggested the logos for trade associations (ASHRAE for HVAC, NFPA for fire protection and ASPE for plumbing) as well as things like air handlers for HVAC, sprinkler systems for fire protection and drinking fountains and bathroom fixtures for plumbing. We also talked about possibly incorporating elements from their engineering plans. Finally, I suggested including the human touch of the actual engineers with traditional tools of the trade to represent the Seaman team.

With all of this in mind, I set off to design the final panels. One of my primary goals was to make sure that the composition of each individual painting worked as a stand-alone, but also worked as part of a larger composition with all 3 panels! Similar to my original mural in the conference room, I also wanted these new murals to invite people to look at them over and over and find new details with each viewing.

Some of the more obvious elements are the big, sweeping Seaman logo in the background and the hands with the pencil and compass. Each panel also uses a more subtle representation of the appropriate trade association logo as well as the equipment used in HVAC, fire protection and plumbing. I also wanted to bring in elements of nature to add to the beauty of the pieces while tying in to the subject – with wind and water for HVAC, rain for fire protection and water for plumbing. Finally, I also used symbols from the keys of Seaman’s engineering drawings, representing elements from their HVAC, fire protection and plumbing plans. For the color scheme, I decided to keep it consistent with the conference room piece to keep all of the pieces congruous while also helping to keep them soothing and relaxing to look at.

Below are some of the images I worked with and pictures of the final panels.

Enjoy,

Jason

Painted Furniture

September 15, 2016

Painted furniture is a hot trend in interior decorating, and it is a great way to refresh tired, old furniture!

I recently did a project with interior designer Anne Meuller of Briar Design. She was staging a house for sale, but also working with her clients on their next home. Anything she did with the furniture would need to work for the staging, but also fit with the client’s tastes for their new space.

There were 2 pieces in particular that were a challenge. The client wanted their décor to have a rustic sea-side look, but their dining room table had a dated yellowish oak finish, and their buffet was a dated medium walnut. Replacing these pieces did not fit the budget, so Anne called me with her ideas for new painted finishes.

For the buffet, Anne chose a medium grey-blue with a matte varnish finish, to be topped off with new hardware. For the table, Anne had me use the same gray-blue for the base, but she also had me do a translucent “pickled” finish on the top, using a lighter grayish blue.

Below are some pictures of the project.

Enjoy, Jason

Close-up of table-top translucent "pickled" finish

Decorative Painting on Furniture

July 19, 2016

Back in May, I wrote a post about repairing the decorative painting on an old Italian chair for my client Pam. She has since called me back to tackle repairs on the other 4 chairs in the set!

Similar to the first project, Pam wanted me to re-paint the decorative elements where they have been damaged or chipped away, but to replicate the old patina of the rest of the chair to keep the charm and authenticity of these pieces.

While these chairs were not as damaged as the first project, I did encounter a new challenge! Many of these pieces – and one in particular – had previous “repair” work done to them that was unfortunately not done well. In these cases, I had less of a reference point to start with as the repairs were not accurate and my only option was to paint over the work that been previously done. Fortunately, there are some repeating elements form one chair to the next, so I was able to re-create full sections of this decorative painting work. In the end, this was my favorite part of the project!

Below are some before and after shots of this work.

Enjoy!

Jason

Decorating with Faux Brick Painting

June 28, 2016

When I met with my client Marla, she was looking for a way to transform a large, blank wall in her living room. The wall is at a slight angle to the adjacent wall where the television is installed, so hanging pictures in this space never quite looked right, or worse – the pictures reflected in the television and made it hard to see what was on TV. Since the wall is front and center in the living room, however, leaving it blank left the room feeling unfinished.

Marla was interested in some sort of mural, but she wanted something that would go with her modern décor and would make a statement without dominating the room. She was also interested in enhancing the “New York City loft” look her condo has. This led us to a conversation about doing a faux brick wall – which Marla was very interested in. It was important that the brick look real and aged, and that the colors would work in her space. Marla also had the idea to continue the brick look on one wall in her kitchen – which is visible up a small set of stairs from the living room.

After looking through colors in my swatch book, we settled on a basic palette and made plans for me to come back and transform her plain walls into NYC-loft-style faux brick walls.

To create this look, I painted the walls in stages. After basic prep of the walls, the first step was to paint the walls the warm grey color of the concrete between the bricks. Once this was dry, the next step was to paint the brick pattern in one base color. With the brick pattern established, I could go back and paint the variation that occurs in many brick walls to make it look more real. Below are pictures of the process.

The grey base color painted and the beginning of painting the brick

Marla and her family were thrilled with the results! As I finished parts of the process, Marla’s son Max sent out pictures to his friends over Instagram. All were surprised it wasn’t real brick – and one friend of his in New York said it looked just like a New York City loft! (which Marla thought was perfect)

Enjoy!

Jason

Skywriter Kids' Room Mural

June 17, 2016

A few weeks ago, I got a great call from my latest client Jake, who wanted to do something special for his sister. She is expecting her third child (and first son) soon, and Jake wanted to surprise her by completely re-doing the nursery. As part of this nursery makeover, Jake had an airplane/sky theme in mind and wanted a mural to really make the space something mom and baby would both love.

Being close to my own sisters, I was excited to help Jake make his vision come together – and to make his gift to his sister as special as he wanted.

When we met at his sister’s house to check out the space, Jake had loose ideas of incorporating clouds, an airplane and the baby’s name (“Jamian”), but nothing specific. With his thoughts, I did a quick sketch on the spot showing the basic layout we ended up using – and he loved it.

The next step was to do my usual “concept sketch” – where I do a scale version of the final mural in the actual colors I will be using. We went through a couple of iterations with different colors, but ended up going back to my first version, below:

With the plan in hand, I was ready to start in the room – but not until Jake installed a lock to keep his sister out and the surprise safe. Of course, she was fully aware that some guy was coming every day with boxes full of paint – so I guessed she had some idea of what was going on. Once I had the mural almost finished, I realized the large scale left too much empty space in the middle, so I added and extra plane.

The day I finished up, Jake stopped by that night and was so thrilled with the end result, he had to share it with his sister – who was so happy with it she cried!

Below is the final result and some detail shots

Enjoy!

Jason

Painting and Glazing Kitchen Cabinets

June 06, 2016

It’s amazing how much of a difference it can make to paint old cabinets! My most recent project of painting and glazing oak kitchen cabinets definitely demonstrated this.

My clients Suzy and Dave were faced with a common kitchen remodel challenge… Their cabinets were in perfectly good shape, but the honey-colored finish looked dated, particularly in contrast to their new marble counter-tops. They knew they didn’t want to invest in all new cabinets, but they weren’t sure about painting them a flat color either – which is why they called me.

After looking at the colors in the kitchen, the counter tops and the adjacent rooms, we settled on a dark brown for their bar/island and a warm light grey for the remainder of the kitchen. Using the different colors adds some contrast and interest to the room, while also making the island stand out almost as a piece of furniture.

To give the cabinets more depth and interest, we also decided to glaze, or “antique” them. Suzy loved the look of the glaze, but also preferred it to be more subtle, so we went with a medium grey-brown for the glaze color.

The end result transformed the kitchen and looked great with the new counter tops! We unfortunately didn't get many "before" pictures, but the couple we do have give a good idea of the contrast with the "after" (below).

Enjoy,

Jason

Repairing Decorative Painting on an Italian Chair

May 20, 2016

I thoroughly enjoy unique painting challenges, and my client Pam recently presented one to me in the form of an antique Italian painted chair.

The chair is part of a set that Pam loves, but this particular chair was significantly damaged. Covering the wood frame is a thin layer of plaster that features fantastic decorative painting on all of the forward-facing surfaces. Over the years, the chair has developed a great patina that Pam very much likes, but unfortunately the years have also caused a good amount of the plaster (and as a result, the beautiful decorative painting) to chip off. With the large chunks of old, dark wood interrupting the ivory colored chair and decorations, the effect degraded the charm of the patina to make the chair look damaged. Below is one shot of the chair before I started working on it:

One of my biggest concerns was the fragility of much of the plaster that was still in tact – in fact, large chips came off just when we picked the chair up. To address this, my first step was to actually chip off all of the loose pieces I could find and then glue them back down. This gave me a more stable starting point.

After cleaning, sanding and priming the bare spots, I then proceeded to mix paints to match the background ivory color. With many years of wear and sun exposure, different parts of the chair were actually very different colors of ivory – so I ended up mixing 4 different base colors. I then applied these and in some cases did more mixing to make the break between the “old” color and the “new” color imperceptible. To really tie these painted sections in with the original surfaces, I then used 2 different glaze colors that I strategically wiped into the surface to match the patina color and patterns from the wear on the old sections of the chair.

With this done, it was on to the decorative patterns. In most cases, I was able to find the design that belonged in the blank section from another area on the chair. In other cases, there was no design to work with, so I had to make my best guess to interpret what should be in the missing areas. Like with the ivory background, I also needed to be sure to match all of the original colors!

The project ended up being a fun challenge – but most importantly, Pam was thrilled with the result.

Following are a number of “before” and “After” shots showing different sections of the chair. Enjoy!

Repairing Brick with Paint

May 17, 2016

The painting challenges I encounter take on many forms – including my recent project of repairing bricks with paint!

My client is a contractor who is renovating the interior of a commercial space in Chelmsford, MA. In the process of the renovation, they needed to drill a few holes in an interior brick wall, only to find that the specific bricks in this wall are no longer available!

With the option of replacing the bricks out of the question, they reached out to me to see if I could paint gray concrete patches to look just like the surrounding brick.

Below are some of the pictures of the bricks before and after my painting repair. Probably the best compliment I could receive is when the person who did the patching had a hard time finding the spots once I had painted them!

Enjoy,

Jason