Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

When was the last time..

When was the last time that you did something for the first time? This was a question posed by an advert that I saw this morning. I thought that it may be an interesting thread to share.

I'll start because I had quite a few firsts last week.  I visited Luxembourg for the first time.. verdict? Fab.

I had never drank Cremant which is Luxembourg's 'fizzy'.. Verdict? Also fab.

Another first was cooking on a raclette grill ..verdict? I have ordered one in the hope of cooking in the garden this summer.

I watched Britains Got More Talent for the first time.  Now, I have to admit I was looking forwad to this as I rarely see TV at home... verdict? Awful and I don't want to do it again.

Played with a Wii for the first time ..verdict? Fab and silly.  Who waterskis on their friends sofa whilst wearing scotty dog pyjamas?

Another first was sardines cooked on an open fire washed down by Mojitos.. for breakfast.

Verdict?.. I can't remember.

Now it's your turn.

Helen.

Love London

 

When I visit London I like to arrive early, buy a travel pass then board a bus and see where it takes me.

 
I have found all sorts of weird and wonderful places. On my last trip I took a bus ride along Park Avenue and saw these sculptures.

 

Before my next trip I 'd like to buy photographer and writer Barbara Chandler’s book Love London and visit the city through her lens.  I have met Barbara many times in her role as a writer and have featured her photography on this blog.  This morning I was thrilled to see Barbara's work made into fabrics, digital wallpapers and other home goodies. I found them on DesignersBlock, the author Di Overton often takes her readers to wonderful London locations. I shall be in the capital next week visiting 100% Design, Decorex and Origins trade exhibitions.

London, a capital city.

I arrived in London at 6.30 yesterday morning and left at midnight. I was there to view the Grand Designs Exhibition and to meet the publicity and marketing team for our new book about stencilling. They had some interesting ideas.

I had intended to take you on a site seeing jaunt with me but the camera switched on inside my bag and used up most of the battery. So....just incase you missed highlights of last week's Royal Wedding here are a few shots outside Westminster Abbey.

  

Red bus, London Eye, Big Ben..I just needed a black cab and I'd have had a good set of London landmarks.

 
Do you think Nelson Mandela is going to pick up Big Ben and launch it like a dart?

Helen.

Le Train Bleu

When the Icelandic volcano struck in April 2010 I was in Paris and could not get home.  Did I worry? No, not a lot.  The airline Easy Jet looked after this refugee very well and it gave me a chance to do things in the city that I cold not usually afford time to do.   The Paris tourist office offered booklets featuring walks around each quarter of the city. I was advised by the booklet where to find street art, murals, sculpture and interesting architecture.  One walk took me to the Gare de Lyon; one of the many railway stations in Paris. Next week I will show you the station's murals, but now we will visit the famous restaurant at the Gare de Lyon. Le Train Bleu  is no ordinary railway station restaurant and has murals of it's own to delight the visitor.

I am sure that I recall something about this place I thought as I drifted under the neon, through the revolving door and into another century.

Then I remembered that my good friend Fiona celebrated a BIG birthday at Le Train Bleu.(It was a year ago today, happy birthday Fiona!)  Fiona is married to a chef and they both enjoyed their meal here.   I wanted to text her for her foodie recommendations. However, there was only two vegetarian choices, both sounded fab and Fiona would have ordered neither of them. So instead I asked my attendent which of the two he would chose...

"The pasta" he whispered.  "The portion is bigger". 

The team of attendants were lovely to me, they tolerated my attempts to speak French with humour and on hearing that I was a stranded decorative painter that writes a blog they said "photograph everything, enjoy it all"  So I did.  I hope that you do too.

Helen.

 

 

 

 

dribble art

On some of the pavements, pedestrian crossings and road markings in Versailles, Paris I saw these dribble paintings.

They were usually faces but I remember seeing writing and musical instruments in a couple of them.  This was on the pavement outside my accomodation. Does any one know who the artist(s) were?  Or anything about them? They appear to be drawn from one continous and skillful dribble. 

Helen 

Powell River and the stencilled curtains

 

Powell River,BC,Canada July 2010.

I took a bus trip on Malaspina Coaches from Vancouver BC up the coast to Powell River.  Vancouver is the black blob on the souvenir tea towel and Powell River is almost at the end of the red line.

The trip involves a quick plane ride or a slow bus and ferry. For a change I went the slow way, it was worth every second. 

BC Ferry from Horseshoe Bay, Vancouver, Canada

alone on the ferry deck enjoying the stillness.

Powell River's historic town site was celebrating it's centennial whilst I was there.  I know that 100 years is not a big deal in the UK but this is one of the very few working historical sites of this age in Canada.  The business and homes are still occupied

and the original town was based on British Arts & Crafts style architecture. The Powell River Mill was the main employer at the time.  The town site was built for the mill workers. The area was designed to be neighbourly, green, safe and a pleasure to live in.  All streets lead to the ocean front and paper mill.  Powell River claims first in many titles, first medical plan in BC, first direct dial telephones.  At one time the Powell River paper mill rolled the highest amount of newsprint in the world on the world's fastest machines. The list goes on.

Powell River's Patricia Theatre is the oldest continually running theatre in Canada

and seeing as it has stenciling and murals we will visit it.

The walls are stone blocked.  Don't you love the private booths?

Look... stencilled curtains! 

The original artwork was under so much smoke and nicotine that the community decided to repaint using the original drawings. Local artists gave their time.  I don't know whether the curtains are originals.  Velvet is an interesting surface to stencil.  I teach classes on the subject.   To get a stencil design similar to the decorated curtains I would look first in Art Deco stencils then Arts & Crafts and possibly Art Nouveau stencils.   Our True Gold stencil paint would be the perfect colour match.  The Stencil Library Arts & Crafts stencil range offers a good choice of stencils to compliment homes of this age.

Helen.

Art Deco mural in Paris.

A customer called the other day and bought every sheet of aluminium silver leaf that we had in stock.  We emptied the shop, the store room and even raided my teaching supplies to help her out.  I would like to think that this is what she might be doing with it all... 

Let me introduce you to the silver leaf ball room at the Musee Carnavalet Paris.  This is just one of the many treasures that make this fabulous and free museum one of my hot spots of Paris.

The artist has painted a scene of festivity onto a silver leafed back ground. The whole thing is lacquered and shiny.  Because I was photographing without flash in a dark room sans tripod only a few of my pictures were sharp enough to use but here are some details. Click on the picture to see more. 

The ceiling mural shows rope hoisting silk swags into a series of patterns allowing swags, curtains and an asencion way to the to the heavens.

The style is art deco with a nod to Chinoiserie and exoticism. There are men riding ostriches and monkeys reading books. There is much strenuous blowing of wind instruments. The room originally resided at an hotel in Paris and is one of the many rescued rooms at the Musee Carnavalet.

There are acrobats in harem pants and curly slippers.

I'm not quite sure what is happening in this one but it involves a naked woman sitting in a sea shell getting a pedi. 

 

I have often stencilled onto metallic leaf.  The result can be stunning.  I use fluid acrylic paint and if I find the the paint is not keying to the metallic surface then a tiny amount of liquid soap on the stencil brush will usually solve the problem.   We will have metal leaf back in our shop any day now.....so if you fancy creating your own ball room....

Helen

Salon 2010 Paris

 

On many occasions I have been told that I should attend Salon but I was never quite sure what it was, so I didn't.

Salon 2010 was held in Versailles near Paris and...as that is only a short hop across the English Channel I went to see what all the excitement was about.

 
I arrived in Versailles with little idea of what to expect.

The night before I travelled I read an interview between Leslie Vigini and Regina Garay on the Fauxology blog. That was a great help. I understood that Salon is an annual gathering for international masters of decorative arts to come together, share knowledge and admire each others work. It was also to watch and discuss the application of old and new techniques and materials.  

 

I packed a sun face stencil, it's my company logo.  It was King Louis' too.  They are all over Versailles. My room mates were Sheri Hunt and Tatiana Rugers.

 

They are both members of IDAL, the international group of decorative artisans that I belong to. Sheri and Tatiana had previously particpated at Salons so I looked to them for guidance.  Those not part of the Salon group, may participate by submitting evidence of their talent to the Salon hosts.  Both artwork and artist must meet standards of excellence set down by the group before being accepted. I was there as a guest, I had nothing to do except watch, learn, enjoy myself and brew the morning cappuccino.

The chosen panels for Salon 2010 were displayed in the Versailles Town Hall from the opening reception to the end of Salon. Here a few samples of the work.

 

 
Throughout Salon the participating artists recreated their submitted panel for an audience of fellow masters and visitng public.

More than 100 artists from 16 different countries attended.

 

The communal meals were a riot of hand semaphore, Franglais and other hybrid communication  as we got to grips with each others languages.

 There were two Salon mural projects to work on.  This one was for members only it was orchestrated by Patrick Kirwin and was donated to the Versailles City Museum. It depicted a visual feast... with no cheese. 

 

The other offering was open to all to contribute (I hope) and was a mosaic of finishes donated to the School of Fine Art.

Persuaded by others I tagged the mural with my sun face stencil… and no one painted over it. 

 

Much of Salon is concerned with marbling, and replicating stone or wood finishes.

 

 

I have done neither since college twenty years ago but my interest has been awakened and I want to learn again.

 

Murals and trompe l’eoil are well represented by some of the best artists in the industry.

 

 

There was little stencilling.  One of the British masters referred to my profession as 'slap dashers' and tried to convince me that it was a compliment! I wandered between locations attending lectures and lunches and observed the progression of murals.

 

 
My favorite part of the week was the excursions.  Our host Jean Sable and his team took us to some wonderful places, but that can wait.  This post is long enough.

Jean Sable is teaching at this years IDAL convention in Portland, Oregon, USA..

His work is beautiful and I expect the class will be wonderful.  Those not attending the convention may want to learn may like to know he has a new book. I've had a peek and it's fab.

Helen.

 

Heaven is a perfectly made cupcake (and news of the volcano)

So this is nothing to do with stencilling, but I just had to share...the other day we were lucky enough to be treated to a sample of baked goodies from Pet Lamb Patisserie: 

This is the relatively new endeavour of two Newcastle girls, one of whom happens to be the daughter of our marvellous postman and we had been hearing about (and salivating over) Pet Lamb's various wares for months now.  Now if you have a sweet tooth like I do, it is nothing short of punishment to hear about cakes in detail on a regular basis, but not to actually try them.  At long last, a parcel was duly delivered and oh, what a parcel.  Such concoctions are almost too beautiful to eat, but eat them we did and they taste as good as they look.

(photo by Pet Lamb)

They are made from free range and free trade products so not only are good for you, but good for the world.  Should you be in the North East of England and need yummy cakes, cupcakes, cookies, or brownies for an event then look no further than Pet Lamb Patisserie.  Apparently their Bailey's Flap Jacks are divine too.  I shall await samples of those, hint, hint.

Meanwhile, on another note, our intrepid leader Helen is stuck in Paris at the moment due to the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano eruption in Iceland.  If you want to amuse yourself, have a listen to various newcasters trying to pronounce that name.  I'd just stick to "Icelandic volcano" myself.  If you haven't heard, the resulting ash cloud has completely closed airspace over the UK and parts of Europe.  Strangely, Helen doesn't seem to be too put out to be spending extra time in Paris.  It's a shame we had to eat all the cakes ourselves as they wouldn't possibily keep until she gets back.  At the moment, that is supposed to be Tuesday, but who knows.  In the meantime, I will continue posting on her behalf and no doubt she will return and leap back into blogging (probably in French) at some point soon.  Rachel

Peking at the ice sculptures

Earlier this month I took a break from stencilling and showed you my attempt at starting an ice palace. I said that I would dig out the photos of 'proper' ice sculpture.

Well, in December 2001 I went to Nashville USA to record some television programmes called 'our place' .  Annie Sloan had also made the journey from the UK.   Annie and I had talked together for a many years.  I had bought umpteen of her books and she had bought my one!.... but we had not met until we were on the studio set.  After filming one day we braved the most horrendous rain storm.  We got soaked to our undies, which would not normally be a problem but the objective of our folly was to take a peek at the Peking ice scupltures all the way from China.  Once inside the building it was, well...freezing.
The attendants took pity on us, infact they were lovely.  We arrived on closing time, they stayed open, wrapped us in blankets and let us have the run of the place. This is me sliding down an ice shute.
There were buildings, bridges, people and animals all carved from the ice.

Another highlight of the stay was visiting the Country Music Hall of Fame   That ignited a love of bluegrass and American old time music. I now sing both, as half a duo called Valley Girls.

Whilst in Nashville I visted the Opryland Hotel with Melanie Royals of Royal Design Studio and Modello Designs, she was also appearing in the programmes.  We had known each other for a long while via membership of IDAL the International Decorative Artisans League.

We wanted to see the Christmas decorations at the hotel, we stayed for dinner then took a ride on a gondola.   Yep....a gondola ride...through the hotel.
Disappointingly this was the only picture that I have. See the water and the boat?  If we had known then that we would both become blog writers I'm sure that we would have been more diligent with our photo taking.

Melanie and I hoping to team up later this year and present what we hope will be an inspiring four hours of visual stimulation through photography and demonstrations of our work with stencils.
We have called it 'Double Vision' though will be featuring other artists too.  If our propsal is accepted we will present 'Double Vision' at the IDAL convention in Portland Oregon this July. Melanie's blog is designamour, visit for a great source of stencil related eye candy.

Helen