What is Decorative Wall Painting?
Decorative Wall Painting has certainly become one of the most popular and fastest growing decorative applications around. No longer is just base coat paint enough to enhance a room with warmth and depth.
Once know only as stenciling, decorative painting
now is a combination of transparent paints, also know as glazes, which
can be applied to basecoat paint to give the once 'naked' basecoat painted
room, warmth and texture; a texture of
sight only, not a texture you can feel with your hands. These
decorative paint glazes are applied with sponges, rags, plastic bags,
feathers and an assortment of brushes to walls, ceilings, floors and columns.
This is a great backdrop of color and 'sight' texture for the next application
of stenciling.
Stencils that first were used several hundred of
years ago abroad in England were once just one or two colors and mostly
a single motif or run horizontally around the room near the top of wall.
Stencils would be applied to the walls instead of very expensive wallpaper.
The paint was made up of a milk base tinted with extracts from flowers
and even blood for the deep red colors. Stenciling then came to the
states in the late 1800 and these historical stencils can still be seen
in churches and
Historical homes all over the New England states.
Over the last 13 years, however, stencils are much more
elaborate and are laser cut with 4 to 8 layers of Mylar --- creating much more
realistic artwork. Stenciling, or decorative artwork as it is also know
can be painted so realistically that it could 'fool the eye'---also known as
Trompe L'Oeil. Not only walls are applied with stenciling, but
empty 'canvas' of floors, with hand painted 'rugs', a ceiling that looks like
it is opened up to the sky. A concrete patio to look like flagstone with
a pond. And even with fish floating in the water of a toilet bowl.
Stencils are now painted with oil and more popular are acrylic paints
which are waterborne and easier to use.
I first started stenciling tweanty years ago, stenciling anything I could get my hands on. First starting of course with your very basic designs using two layers of Mylar. I painted anything from tote bags, paper shopping bags, place-mats, canvas floor cloths, cotton aprons, mailboxes and even small indoor garbage cans.
Over the years I would go into nursery schools and elementary
schools and teach the basics of stenciling to the young students.
As a mother of four children, when they were young I did not want to work out
of my house, so my stenciling items would be sold to local stores and out of
my home. Those who would be given a piece of my work would then call me
and order items for gifts. The work grew to an amount that I would be
mass-producing hundreds of items right out of the basement of my home.
As my four sons entered the school age, I started stenciling out of the house
for friends and family---actually begging them for me to do some work on their
walls.
Each of my four sons has helped me in my business during
the summer months. I remember one of my own son's saying to me "mom,
you don't really work." Shocked, I replied with "what do you mean I don't
work?" He then stated "you love what you do!" I will often say to
my sons, find what you love to do----and it will never be work to you.
I am proud to say that now over the ten years, I have
done over 1000 rooms in my community located in Rochester, New York.
You may contact Joanie at (585) 385-4094
or by e-mail JJPPVAL@aol.com
-Here is another site my Mom is On-