Faux Finishing Seminar
Artist Arthur Morehead of Art-Faux Designs Inc.™ will hold another
“What to Know Before You Faux”
Seminar at the Miromar Design Center in Estero Fl. on August 21st from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The Saturday afternoon seminars are held to bring public awareness to the many facets of decorative painting and to show what a professionally executed finish can do for the home
Being that the seminars have been such a great success we are now presenting
“Live Demonstrations”
of some common techniques that even the “Do it Your Self” enthusiasts can do!
This months demonstration will be
“How to Apply a Tissue Paper Texture”
Since starting the seminar series in the spring of 2009 I have been asked more than once if I could do a demonstration on some of the techniques that are available and thought this would be a great way to interact with the people who like to come to these events.
In the fall of 2009 I demonstrated a technique known as “Broken Color”, to an overwhelming crowd and it was a huge success,
so occasionally through the course of my monthly seminars I will host demonstrations and explain in detail the how to properly prepare the surface that will receive the finish which all professional decorative artists should know which separates us from the rest.
After all, there are many things involved when it comes to the more complicated finishes and it is very important to know that the proper surface preparation is met before proceeding to install any finish. There are many procedures for several finishes due to the different products that are used. For instance you would not prepare a wall for an authentic venetian plaster the same as you would prepare a wall that just requires a base coat of paint for a synthetic venetian plaster which in this case is not a plaster at all because it’s made mostly of acrylic polymers that resembles a venetian plaster, yet it is labeled and sold as such. (personally I think it’s misleading). There is a huge difference between the end results which most home owners don’t know about, but once the comparison is brought forth the differences are like night and day, not only for the appearance but also of the benefits, advantages and disadvantages when comparing one to the other. This is just one of many things that I go over in my seminars because for the past decade most home owners were really never given the facts and/or the benefits of one finish verses the other and now are finding out that the 3 to 5 year old finish that was suppose to last a life time is now either failing or falling off the wall because quite simply it was a “crossover” product put together originally in someones garage and in most cases was never even field tested to begin with. In one case for instance, I get a call from a client who attended one of my seminars to come take a look at an area that she has been having problems with and after going through 3 other, what I call “faux painters” ill attempts at trying to match a damaged wall because of their lack of “color theory” knowledge I had to match what appeared to be a basic plaster finish.
For those of you who are reading this post that have somewhat of a weak stomach you may want to skip this part. In my 30 plus years in the painting business this would have been a first for me, and believe me I have seen some strange things, but this would have to be right up there in the top ten. I get to the clients home and sure enough it was evident that there had been a few attempts at fixing the damaged area by the inexperienced but I could also see right away that there was more than just a color issue so while checking on the damage by tapping on the wall I could tell the the product that was originally installed had started to de-laminate from the substrate (drywall) so obviously I had to diagnose the problem before administering the cure, so I had to break away the plaster that had come loose in order to fix the problem underneath and as I broke away the plaster 3 or 4 small palmetto bugs came crawling out from underneath the plaster that I had just broke away and as I peeled more of it away I could tell that they were literally eating the plaster. Now I know a lot of product lines and can recognize them simply just by there characteristics, but this one I was not familiar with but after investigating the obvious places that home owners use to store left over products, and is usually common knowledge and general practice of contractors to leave extra product behind for touch up issues and I found a left over bucket with the name of the product, which I will not mention for obvious reasons. After acquiring the MSDS data sheets that the Federal Government requires manufacturers to make available to consumers I discovered that this particular product contained “vegetable oil” which was added for the purpose of when the plaster was burnished it would polish up to a nice shine and yes it did do just that but it also was a smorgasbord to the local bug population.
Needless to say I took care of the issue and repaired the damage but I never imagined that during my career as an artist part of my job would include having to become an exterminator so to speak, but it is what it is and I’ll do what’s necessary. I did get a couple of canvas ideas from it but after a second thought it probably wouldn’t have went over well at a gallery
My whole point of even mentioning this in the first place is to let everyone know that I think it is important that our clients know that as professionals, product quality is of the utmost importance. So be sure to attend the August faux finishing seminar.