Faux Finishing and Dome Ceiling Ideas can be used to accomplish almost anything with the right use of color and technique and once again I was asked to come up with something unique and Bone Ivory came to mind.
It seems when it comes to dome ceiling ideas, faux finishing and decorative art is the first thing interior designers will think of, or at least that’s what I hope for anyway.
The designer wanted something different and not what you would see every day on a dome ceiling.
So she showed me pictures of several accessories plus a small jewelry box that was hand made in Asia. The box particularly grabbed my attention along with the chandelier, rugs, drapery, and so on and so forth. When working with a good interior designer they are basically going to have a “storyboard” as I call it and many references to colors, fabrics, and textures which are going to be used throughout the area. But for some reason, this little jewelry box from Asia stood out to me. Now, most people would say it was made of ivory without knowing the difference, but authentic ivory comes from tusks and bone ivory well, comes from bone, and although technically the same, they are also quite different.
It is actually harder to tell the difference of a good quality man-made ivory than actual ivory if you did not know the characteristics of real ivory, which is very important to know when replicating an actual ivory faux finish. Understanding what you are replicating whether it be organic or not should be researched and studied in order to replicate the finish successfully.
When I first started thinking about the dome ceiling idea and using a bone ivory faux finish there were two things I was up against. One was the fact that bone ivory, like tortoiseshell, is rarely used in large quantities and rather more as an accent such as an inlay on the frets of a guitar or as jewelry, pistol grips for handguns and handles for knives to name only a few.
Like tortoiseshell ivory became very valuable and highly sought after and being that the main source was from elephant tusks and they were hunted nearly into extinction just as the hawksbill turtle was harvested for its shell. Although now it is illegal to hunt down the elephants for their tusks it is still done by poachers today despite the fact that they are protected.
As with tortoiseshell bone, ivory is rarely used in pieces that are no larger than 3″x6″ so I wanted to respect that rule of mother nature which would make the finish very time-consuming being that my first thought was having to tape out each individual piece or shape. I also did not have a large budget for this project so I had to come up with a technique that was effective and yet cost-efficient.
Hence my Bone Ivory for Dome Ceiling Ideas was born or at least my ceiling idea of it anyway.
I wanted the dome ceiling to have the same luster as the bone ivory so I went right to Faux Effects Venetian Gem White on White and troweled on two smooth layers over a base of Setcoat Offwhite because I wanted both a cool and warm white base and yet still somewhat absorbent to color and glaze so it would dry quickly thus cutting down on the time of having to wait overnight for the overglaze to dry which was accomplished using a mix of AquaCreme and Faux Creme Color Van Dyke Brown with a touch of Ultramarine. After glazing the dome ceiling with this mix I let it dry and then used an “open palette” of Aquacreme, FCC Italian Sienna, Earth Brown, VanDykeBrown, and FCC White.
I initially laid out the 3″ vertical lines after the glazing on the dome ceiling dried and worked the horizontal lines in randomly while working with the open palette at the same time. This saved a ton of time is that there was no tape used and I was able to control my values to gain the depth I wanted for the “join lines” which I will punch up later using light and shadow.
Ceiling ideas are popular these days so there needs to be more than just a faux finishing technique, for instance, adding a border to the dome ceiling as I did here gives this ceiling idea more dimension.
The ornamental design was mirrored from the ironwork on the chandelier along with the finish. The idea is to unify the dome ceiling with the chandelier to make it all look like one unit and the bone ivory should appear as an accent although it is portrayed over the entire dome ceiling.
I had a lot of fun with this ceiling idea and creating a new bone ivory faux finishing technique was even more rewarding.