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.

These books 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 and revered Salon member Michel Nadaï.


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

I have purchased a number of well priced volumes via Chapitre in Paris (who ship quickly and without gouging you about handling) and you may buy the books directly through the Editions Vial website.

Michel Nadai's book is also available through several decorative painting schools in the US, like Pierre Finklestein's on-line shop.







some my current favorites are:

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

In a few months, Vial will also release the much-anticipated book Imitations et décors à l'école Van der kelen from the prestigious Van der Kelen Institut supérieur de peinture.


I understand Editions Vial have a booth at the annual SALI exposition this week, and anyone near Charlotte, NC would do well to visit this exposition if only to buy books.
But also be on the lookout for decorative painting DVDs, wonderful stencils from Helen Morris and Sheri Hoeger, as well as all the latest goo being used in the "faux" business these days.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

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.

click on any image to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

The Fantastic World of Edvard Mordake

Mordake, Erling Wold's latest opera, tells the story of the 19th century aristocrat, Edvard Mordake, who was driven mad by his twin sister - a female face on the back of his own head.
I was asked to help visualize the setting- a suite of rooms fit for a Victorian gentleman.

I found plenty of inspiration at Richard Reutlinger's lovingly restored Victorian house in San Francisco, especially in the master bedroom, which features a Dresser-inspired frieze painted by my late friend and mentor, Larry Boyce.
I photographed some rooms, and made a Thurber-esque line drawing, as well as a simplified gouache painting of the bedroom (above) which are all to be computer- modified by Erling and German visual artist Freider Weiß, and then projected on stage to create Edvard's world. The large mirror I left blank, as they will be adding some invented reflections there. The set will alternate between photos, video, drawings, and paintings, to create varying levels of reality and fantasy.
And I hope Larry won't mind that in making my paintings of this room, I filled in his rather glaring persian flaw, so as to leave room for some of my own.

Mordake by Erling Wold, a solo performance with tenor John Duykers, premiers May 22 and runs through June 7, 2008
as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival
More information and musings on this subject can be found on Erling's blog.

Mordake is featured on the cover of Theater Bay Area this month!

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Grotesque obsession

As an Ornamentalist (and posting this while currently traveling in Italy) I can't help but obsess just a bit about the grotesque ornamentation that covers entire ceilings and indeed whole rooms in some of the places I have visited recently.

Grotesque figures found in a window of the Gallery of Maps, Vatican Museum, Rome

I am also absolutely rapt with my newest aquisition, Les Grotesques by Allessandra Zamperini, a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated book that traces the history of the form, from ancient Pompeii to the bestiaries and drolleries of medieval manuscripts, to the discovery of the Domus Aurea in the 15th century that inspired Raphael and his contemporaries to create an entire system of "grottesche" ornamentation, which endured as a major influence in painted decor for centuries, including singerie, neo-classical, and 19th century revival interiors. I bought the French version of the book while in Florence and have only slightly minded its weight in my luggage this last week.

Rome: ground zero for Grotesca
In future travels I'd love to visit the Guila Romano, Palazzo Farnese, Villa d'Este and some of the other fabulous villas that sport this kind of painting.

This time, I did get to spend a long day at the The Vatican Museum:

Renaissance "grottesche" ornamentation created by Raphael and his team of decorative painters in 1517-22.

Vatican - Museo Pio Clementino: details of ornamentation
by Christoforo Unterperger circa 1776

Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome: detail of a chapel painted by Francesco Salviati, 1548.

Florence: The Uffizi

Spectacular painted ceilings in the main corridors, many of which were painted by Antonio Tempesta and Alessandro Allori around 1580

Detail of above ceiling

A small spandrel ornament on the lower floor of the Uffizi

note: photography is not permitted inside the Uffizi, so my images were taken by stealth.
Some of the other stealth photographers sharing this work on the web:
groenling's flickr set
MikevV

All of the images in this post photographed by Lynne Rutter, April 2008.
Select any image to view at larger size.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

dissolving/evolving facades

Postcard from Rome...

Near the Campo de' Fiore there is a small building of some considerable age, bent and worn, the lower part covered in graffiti.
At the top of the facade, you can see a lovely frieze decoration that cleverly marries neoclassical and art nouveau styles: angel figures, fountains, and horses, and a vitruvian wave border, created from horse heads.


















If you look very closely at the surface in the center of the building, you can see the ghost of an earlier decoration - a simple trompe l'oeil grid pattern that was all the rage in the 16th century.

The more exposed base of this facade has worn down to its bricks, and a new buildup of spray painted sentiments has begun.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Italian Painted Ceiling: work in progress

Our current project is a large ceiling divided into coffers, for our client's home being transformed with a Northern Italian look. We are painting the panels in the studio on medium weight canvas (Sierra and Melka, pictured above)
The design takes its inspiration from a mix of Florentine paper and grottesca ornament, and uses a cooler palette of roses and blues from our client's fabulous oriental carpet.

As each of the ceiling coffers are slightly different in size and shape, I designed a simple and colorful foliate ornament which when repeated (112 times!) will help make the ceiling look more symmetrical.

We started by developing the corner element. This sketch was copied to a master drawing, and then separated into a simple stencil design. We used the stencil to transfer the basic shape or the ornament to the canvas using four colors of matte acrylic paint.
Each element is then hand-shaded with four more colors, and lined with burnt sienna.

The canvases are then overglazed, and some areas gilt with a fine line of 22 karat gold, for that little glint of a highlight.
We hope to install this ceiling in early June.

Faux Marquetry Ceilings: Rathaus, Vienna

detail of a faux marquetry ceiling panel, Rathaus, Vienna

In September we traveled to Vienna, Austria, where Erling attended the ISMIR conference, and happily, a banquet organized by the city of Vienna for them in the Rathaus- the city hall built in the 1870s in the Gothic Revival style. It is spectacular inside, loaded with graceful arches, stenciled vaulted ceilings, and encaustic tile floors. A large number of rooms have stenciled wood faux marquetry ceilings.

<---dinner with ISMIR participants. there were other women there besides me, you know, waiting tables.

My enthusiasm for the ornament in the building must have been somewhat contagious, as a number of the banquet attendees accompanied me as I snuck from room to room shooting ceilings in the dark.

And to think, I was worried I'd be bored at this event!

These ceilings are made from a light colored pine, that has been beautifully stenciled with pigment or stain to give the look of marquetry; the wood looks richer and the room more grand. The ornament itself is relatively simple and repeated to give an opulent surface without looking too cluttered.

In this room, the lacunaria have been gilt on the edges, I believe with a low karat gold and tinted varnish.

Some of the stenciling appears to have been done in reverse- pigment is applied, and then removed through the stencil.

These are great borders which could be applied to wall paneling, floors, or furniture as well as ceilings.

More images are posted at my flickr account.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Restoring a carved polychromed door

This is a beautifully carved door in Newport Beach, California, by the artist and master woodcarver Mogens Abel, from Laguna Beach.

I remember visiting Mr. Abel in his studio in the mid 1970's; he showed me how he made this sort of work, carving it in redwood, or fir, or some other California native wood, and then "staining" the elements with thinned artist oils.

Everyone remembers this door as having been really brightly colored when it was new.
I sure didn't mind seeing it aged and darkened, but it also became filthy, especially after the recent fires in Southern California, and had a fair number of gouges. The wood has become so dry a large crack was forming up one side.

Last week, I cleaned and oiled the wood, and re-stained the ornament. Just cleaning the surface revealed a lot of the color and detail.




There were enough traces of the original paint that I was able to match the colors. I also mixed up a seaweed green to touch up the gouges and scratches in the door.
In the next few weeks much of the color will be absorbed into the wood.
Abel also carved these redwood gates. After some repairs had been done about 5 years ago, I recreated the polychroming and left it fairly rough. These have since weathered and worn nicely.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Gothic Ornament: Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés

How many different borders can you use in one springing arris?

There are few surviving examples of true Gothic decorative painting. Most of what we can see now is the result of the appreciation and revival of romantic and antique styles during the 19th Century.

Fortunately in the case of Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris, there were significant amounts of original 13th and 14th century ornament to document, despite fires, the sacking of the church in 1789, and the ill use of the building during the next ten years which greatly damaged its interior.

The decorative painting as we see it now, was restored/recreated in 1845. It is remarkable how some of the oldest ornament looks the most modern. Those geometric borders (polka dots!) especially.
An interesting description of the history of this building can be found in this text of a 1921 guidebook.

While taking these photographs I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the priests in the church, who pointed out to me some of the better areas to photograph, and explained to me that areas of the interior had been scrubbed of its paint during more recent repairs. There is currently no plan for any restoration or cleaning.

photo by Lynne Rutter, 2007

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Art Deco Chinoiserie

What gorgeous, romantic bedroom, recalling silver screen Hollywood glamour, bias cut silk lingerie, martinis and cigarette holders....
Interior Designer Paula McChesney, designed this master bedroom for the 2003 Coyote Point Decorators Showcase in an historic Hillsborough mansion.
An expert colorist, Paula was understandably concerned about the astroturf green carpet, which we had to keep. The rest of the room- well, it had some problems:

Before: a long rectangular room with green carpet, white walls and a low ceiling beveled on two sides, dueling chandeliers, and not-quite symmetrically placed anything.

The solution: don't fight with the carpet- go green! The walls were painted with Benjamin Moore "Harrisburg Green" HC-132. The ceiling was painted a custom mixed green-grey and the rest of the palette was kept limited.

We paneled the room with three levels of silver moulding, including each corner, and a picture rail which settled the question 'where does the ceiling start?' The moulding was gilt with aluminum leaf in advance at my studio.

For the insets of the panels I painted Chinoiserie murals, using restrained doses of brilliant color. The panels focus attention into the center of each wall, creating the illusion of symmetry, and balancing the architecture. And it was also just darn pretty.

Paula furnished the room all in ivory, like a splendid Jen Harlow gown.

After the showcase ended, the paneling and the murals were installed in one of our client's homes.

I've been collaborating with Paula for over 12 years now. I think this was one of our most challenging and successful rooms.

room photo by David Duncan Livingston

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Trompe l'oeil bas-relief

more ornament for the bank...

Schoenbrunn, Vienna: trompe l'oeil bas-relief and mouldings, circa 1750. This is painted into the curved corner a coved ceiling.


Detail showing brushwork.
There is the barest hint of rose and green in the shadows and highlights.

photo by Lynne Rutter 2007

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Gothic organ case

more for the ornament bank:

Strasbourg Cathedral: gothic organ case, circa 1385, with foliate ornament, carved ribs w/gold leaf.
Photo by Lynne Rutter 2007

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Good Photography for Decorative Painters

People say to me all the time "wow Lynne, your work looks amazing!"
Well amazing it may well be, but here is my beauty secret: much of the reason it looks so good is the quality of the photograph.

When you've just finished a great project, often all you have as a record of your fine work is the photograph. So it follows, the better that photograph, the better your work will look, and unless you are yourself a very skilled photographer, you really must consider getting professional help.

Learn what makes a Photograph work for you:

• When your work is part of an interior design scheme, showing a picture of the whole interior, rather than just a shot of one wall, is very important, to show how your painting works with the room. It helps sell the work to the next client who wants to visualize what you do as part of the design process, to show the scale of what you painted; how you got the color to match surrounding materials, etc. This is very difficult to accomplish, even with a good digital camera.
  
• Take some responsibility for what's in the shot. Ladders, tarps, construction paper, unfinished rooms with missing hardware or wires hanging down for lighting that has not yet been installed... is that a finished room or a construction site? is that blue tape part of the look? Do you want to give future clients the impression that you leave tape behind? non! Such pictures do not belong in your portfolio! Make it part of your contract, that you be allowed to return to the site to document your work in a finished setting.

Why you should hire a professional photographer

• If you need to shoot something large, or a whole room, a large format camera with a lens that won't distort the room, and proper lighting, make all the difference.
• You are far more likely to get your work published if you can provide a good high-resolution image to the editors.
  

To get the Lacemaker shot in this house in Corte Madera, CA, back in 1993, David Papas and his assistant had to haul their equipment up four flights of steep exterior fog-dampened stairway, rearrange furniture, spend two hours lighting the room to reduce glare and eliminate shadows on the mural, style the 10 foot wide Michael Taylor table using the homeowners own dishes, and the result is I got a 4"x5" positive transparency of a gorgeous room, which has really come in handy for the six times this mural has been published in magazines and books.

Establish a relationship with a good, professional photographer.

• Work with the same photographer over a period of time, and consider that person part of your team.
  

Over the last 15 years most of my better work has been shot by my friend David Papas, who has not only made my work look great, but he's taught me a lot about photography in general.

David is also expert at digital photography, taking large images, correcting problems on the computer, and turning that image over for publication as quickly as possible.

This image of my Vintage Laundry room for the 2007 San Francisco Showcase House was taken by David Papas in two shots, seamed together on the computer. He also "airbrushed" out undesirable clutter like the extension cords and extra lighting that were visible in the shot, and then de-saturated the image to give it the look of an old, tinted photograph.

Factor In the Cost of Photography

Photographers cost money to hire, and with good reason: some of those large format cameras cost as much a luxury automobile, and it takes years to learn how to deal with the various problems of capturing the desired image, and to know how to make the most of what's there.
So, for a large project, I factor in the cost of the photo shoot in advance of making my bid whenever possible.

However, I know well, that the going rate for decent photography may be well more than the profit on some of those smaller projects, and sometimes you just can't get back to that site. So, here are some alternative solutions...

Some low-cost ways to get some great shots into your portfolio:

• Often your project is going to be photographed anyway, so team up with the others involved! The contractor, interior designer, architect, drapery workroom, or carpet showroom, may already have plans to take photos of the finished job. Talk to them about sharing the cost of a photo shoot.
• When working with an interior designer, for a client, or showcase house, ask about the photography of the finished job before you quote a price or do any work. Ask for a detail shot of your work that you can use in your portfolio. Often the cost of one extra shot will be nominal and/or can be considered part of your fee.
  
• If your client plans to photograph the space when it's finished, ask to participate in that photo shoot. If you can't be there, talk to the photographer yourself to tell them what you need to emphasize.
  

My client, the David Allen Company in Raleigh, NC, had a photo shoot done of their headquarters and showroom, and the photographer , Jim Sink took an extra shot of the Nine Muses ceiling mural I painted there, and sent me a CD of this photograph:

which was extremely fortunate given the horrid "available light" shot I had taken myself - I simply did not know how to deal with a mix of halogen, fluorescent, incandescent, and natural light coming from the door.

• Offer to trade services with a photographer. Your decorating skills might be just what [s]he need to make a backdrop, finish a room, enhance the studio, etc.
  
• If your project might get published, ask the photographer from the newspaper or magazine, if you may use one or two of the shots [s]he took in exchange for a link on your website or some usage fee. Sometimes a photographer freelancing for a magazine or newspaper will even contact you.
  

This picture of an historic home in Diablo, CA, for which I painted the floor and faux bois woodwork, was taken by Bernardo Grijalva while shooting for an article in the East Bay Home and Design, which included some of my work, and he was kind enough to email me a larger format copy of the image to use on my website.

Credit where credit is due

• Remember, whether you paid for the photo shoot or not, always give the photographer credit when you use one of their photographs. While you own the copyright on your work, the photographer owns the copyright on the photographic image, and you must have permission to use it.

• Just like you, photographers like to have their good work seen and get their name out there to attract more business. Work with them, and they will help make you look good, too.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Gilt trompe l'oeil: Versailles

Ceiling ornament detail, Châteu de Versailles: neoclassical style trompe l'œil ornament with gilt highlights; gilt panels with trompe l'oeil shadows. This gorgeous bit of painting dates from the Second Empire.
(click on image to enlarge) look closely, you can even see the brushstrokes.
photo by Lynne Rutter, 2007

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Chinoiserie in Red

The Chinoiserie Powder Room I designed for the 2002 San Francisco Decorator Showcase House - David Papas Photography

Here's one of my favorite historic decorating trends: Chinoiserie.
For a number of years now I've been known for painting a certain style of flowering trees Chinoiserie mural using my own spin on the look that was all the rage in late 17th and 18th century French décor.
I adore the wallcoverings of deGournay and Gracie, which are still being produced today in much the same way as the hand-painted wallpapers found in the Royal Pavillion at Brighton, or Lustschloss Hellbrunn, Salzburg. These papers are lush, labor intensive, delicate, and worth every dime they cost.

For this room mural, rather than paint densely covered wallpaper-style panels, I used a light hand, and a more naturalistic approach, to keep this intimate-scaled space airy and uncluttered. Carnelian Red walls help make the room look larger as well as rich and fabulous. And we included California natives such as poppies and monarch butterflies, alongside the lilies, pomegranates, and peonies.

some mentions for this room:
Kafka blog
sfgate

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Backstage at Versailles

left to right: moi, Laurent Hissier, Dr. Erling H. Wold II, Emily Swift-Jones, Daniel Sievert, Pierre LeFumat, and the hunk on the end is a carpenter named Alexandre.

During our recent trip to Paris, evil twin Emily Swift-Jones, Erling, and I made a trip to Versailles, to visit our new friend Laurent Hissier, a talented artisan who works there painting and gilding.

Laurent met us at the side gate, waved us in, and then produced an impressive key from his pocket that opened ALL the doors. We got to see all those room upstairs where the public is not generally allowed. And then - the main event- he took us to the atelier where they are working, situated in a few giant unused rooms in one wing of the palace.

The crew has been restoring a lot of furniture and building and painting supports with eye-popping faux marbre to display the pieces, for a huge show of silver gilt furniture opening in November. Just the supports were so beautifully painted as to be works of art themselves!

To make it even more exciting, Pierre LeFumat, the master himself, was working in this atelier, applying a patina to some mouldings when we arrived.
(I wish I knew how to say "you missed a spot" en français, but I guess that may have been rude.)

We also met the charming master gilder, Daniel Sievert, whom we were told was sold to the palace on his 16th birthday and has been working there ever since. As you can imagine, a gilder will never run out of work to do at Versailles.

This was hands-down the highlight of my trip.

Merci Laurent for the hospitality, and to all the crew who stopped to visit with us.

"When Versailles was Furnished in Silver" runs 19 November 2007 to 9 March 2008

filling the ornament bank

Vienna
Unteres Belvedere: Goldenes Zimmer
designed circa 1720 by architect Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt for Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736)
decorative artist: unknown


one of the reasons i travel is to be inspired by the work of others, and be reminded of what i can do, what i want to do, rather than just what i have to do; it renews my interest in my chosen career.
i am also making a photographic "ornament bank" for reference, both for myself and for the decorative painting world in general- it will wind up either as an on-line digital source or possibly a book.

at any rate, i need to see places like this once in a while and ask- why does no one ask me to make a room like this? because i can do it, just so you know. and what's more, i want to, and i know why it matters.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Singerie Screen in 7x7

September issue of 7x7 Magazine has included a shot of my singerie screen in their home and design section.

A Delicate Matter - Care for your bare necessities with these pretty picks for your laundry room. by Leilani Labong


This large screen made its debut my "Vintage Laundry" in the 2007 San Francisco Decorator Showcase.
Each panel is 90" high by 26" wide and 1.75" thick - sturdy enough to serve as a room divider, or to create a dressing area from a larger room.



One side of the screen is painted in a blue/gray neoclassical motif with singerie scenes in which the monkeys are all playing with clothing, sewing, etc.

Contact Lynne Rutter for details about purchasing this screen or commissioning a custom piece.

My thanks to David Papas Photographer for these photos.

SALI conventioneers invade local studios

Last week the Stencil Artisan's League held its annual convention in the San Francisco Airport Hyatt. I'd never attended such a convention before, and as it was local to me, I signed up for some classes being taught by Lucretia Moroni and Tania Seabock, and dragged my arse to Burlingame at 8 am every morning. I had a lot of fun, met a number of nice painters from all over the world, and got no sleep for 6 days straight.

Lisa Làzàr and I planned a progressive studio tour for some of the visitors for Friday night. Around 7 PM a boisterous group of artists showed up at my hastily cleaned up Dogpatch studio, where Vera greeted them with Salvadoran food and tequila.
Among the artists in attendance: Sheri Hoeger, Ryan Hoeger, Jeff Raum, Pat Ganino, Mike and Matt from Creative Evolution, Tom McPherson, Ian and Tania Seabock, Lis Wolfin, Cleta Grant, Kathy vanGogh, Arlene Mcloughlin, Mimi, Margo, Sass Lassley, Bruce Thalman, Pamela Hernandez, Anne Halaby, Elena Ortega, Heather, Stacy Carney, Pat Strong, Kristen Lerner, Kristin McNeill...

We then carpooled over to West Oakland where Lisa runs the scenic studio for the Berkeley Repertory Theater : her amazing shop is housed in a 25 gazillion square foot zeppelin hangar, clean, well organized, stocked with every tool you could imagine.

Afterwards part of the group wound up at the DNA lounge for some after hours dancing. whew!

How to paint a white kitchen floor

October 27, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle
Lynne solves a Design Dilemma - how to deal with a white kitchen floor. Think painting that white vinyl is an easy cheap option? Think again.

Paris Ceiling featured in Traditional Building Magazine

The detailed process of ornamenting a 900 square foot ceiling in the new Paris Casino Resort Hotel in Las Vegas, is outlined in the article "Vegas Hotel Gambles on Classical Design..." by Nicole V. Gagne
including photos of the work in progress.click on each image to view large enough to read.

Published in Traditional Building Magazine , June 2004