Faux Finishing- The VanderKelen is the best faux finishing school in the world. It carries on the traditional methods that are truly suited to realistic works of art, as well as historical conservation and restoration. I trained there under Madam Denise VanderKelen, an amazing woman in her own right. Below are a few examples of my work, from graining, to marbling, to leafing, and more.
Faux Marble-
Faux marbling takes lots and lots of layers. I build up these layers with a variety of materials from beer glazes, to oil paints, acrylics, and water colors.
Once in a while you need a project to get you through a pandemic, this was mine. I found a badly painted column and turned it into a Rouge Royal marble column. This was also an experiment in casein painting. Although it dries very quickly, the casein worked beautifully in combination with watercolor crayons and acrylics. I want to work more with casein as it more environmentally friendly than other paints.
In this case, given the terrible painting job underneath, I did not use a traditional bole. I decided a simple coat of red casein would do as I was only going to use skewings of composite leaf, instead of gold leaf. Skewings are the left over bits from when you burnish the leaf. You don’t ever waste gold/silver leaf. The small pieces that fly off can be collected and used to fill in small breaks in your leafing.
Faux Graining- The Victorians love their faux grains. Mahogany was one of those woods that was terribly expensive to import, so if you wanted to appear to keep up with the Joneses then faux grain was the way to go.
Here is an example of faux maple painted to look like a frame. Of course it is just a painting on board and there is no frame. The center pattern is silver leaf with highlights and shadows to make it look three dimensional in the same way as the frame. The center sky is painted with casein paints. The whole thing was sealed with blonde shellac.
Cyanotypes- One of the first forms of photography. I use this method to make original contact prints, rework old family photos, or photographs from my own negatives. I love this historic nature of the process and enjoy photography all together.
Fiber Art- I use the term ‘fiber art’ broadly because for me it includes Nuno felting, needle felting, silk painting, indigo dyeing, as well as hand spinning. I do a lot of sewing as well (mostly for myself !).
