Faux Breakaway Finish

Faux Breakaway Finish

This Faux Breakaway Finish I am posting under the Trompe L’oeil section of this blog because it falls within this category. Let me begin with the term.

Trompe L’oeil (Fr., trick the eye) a method of painting for reproducing through fine detail the illusion of three dimensional depth and photographic realism.

Just so you get a better understanding of the term faux breakaway finish and trompe loeil that I am often asked about the definition so I thought it would be best just to quote the definition rather than try to explaining it for the “umpteenth” (hmmm if that is a word lol) time.

I realize of course that I have a ton of updating to do on some old badly written blog posts and have chosen this Brick Breakaway Faux Finish that was actually quite popular five years ago. This brick trompe loeil style of art is starting to make an appearance again in modern Interior Designs lately. Especially with the new Urban Concrete Look that you can find in the big city interiors and commercial type buildings.

Personally I have always admired the art of graffiti style which ironically was a sign of destituted and failing neighborhoods, however to see it become a respected form of art has given many a chance at making a living from what is called more often as modern art these days. I like to refer to it as a spin from Cubism earlier style of Picasso’s work.

Of course Picasso would most likely have chuckled at the thought of that, but you could never tell because of his raw sense of humor and satire that he often could carry on in a conversation about his own work. (Not that I ever met the artist) I can only assume.

Trompe loeil is a very versatile art style and I do use it quite often in my own designs of even to “fix” visual problem areas as I did in a couple elevator lobbies in Naples Fl for an Interior Designer. There were areas where carpenters had a hard time and/or inexperience to make the installation of some crown molding nearly impossible. However with trompe loeil I was able to paint it in and no one could see the difference.

The point is with many different kinds of faux finishing and decorative art forms an experienced professional artist will know how to make problem areas such as these seem to disappear and/or bring something into view to pull the viewers focus away from those type of problem areas such as what has been done with this hallway mural.

The Teakwood table, floor tile, pineapples and the stones are all painted on a flat wall at the end of a hallway where there was not room for furniture at all and was a huge problem area at the end of this 20ft hallway. Using trompe loeil easily remediated this situation

This is one of my favorite techniques that I love to incorporate into the many things that I have in my bag of decorative painting tricks.  I believe in order to be a successful artist in this field you must have an diverse array of techniques in order to keep up with your clients demands.

I think that learning this style is just as important as to know how to perform a simple wall glazing.

The finish above is what’s called a “break away” in decorative painting which I’ve performed several times in commercial as well as residential applications. The part that looks like a plaster is actually an existing paint that a client of mine had on her walls . What she was wanting was to create a European kind of atmosphere without having to go to the extremes and expense of using an actual plaster.

This finish was all done with glaze and paint by knowing how to use color light and shadow to achieve a sense of depth.

I will keep updating this post

Faux Breakaway Finish

As there is more I want to write about it, however in the meantime you might want to sign up for the newsletter and/or subscribe to the RSS feed to keep you updated.