Paintings with a door knob.

The paintings on these doors were meant to acompany and balance the mural of the opposite wall ( Chapter 1 of Demeures Peintes , Hôtel du Marechal de Tingry. They are definitely the minor part of the design...but I like them as much as the major one.
Each door was treated as a whole but also as three different paintings nicely framed and separated from the rest by the  moldings. I think that even the small skiny panels have their own identity. This really is what I found exciting. When I look at a painting I like focusing on details and in this case  the structure of the doors was allowing me to recreate this style of vision.

I worked from Leornardo's drawings .

I drew with charcoal on basecoated paper and  sealed it with acrlylic glaze that I watered down and sprayed over.

Being ambidextrous I can write backwards with my left hand which helped me copying Leonardo's famous handwriting...

Thank you Elle Deco.

Elle Deco's head redactor stopped on my booth at Maison et Objet in September last year. She told me she was astonished their magazine never wrote anything on my work (flattering!!)...the thing is that french decoration magazines journalists are not so easy to contact and I am happy I was on her way.
They mention my book in their April issue. The "article" is short but so positive that do not even dare translate(!).

Before/After . Le Salon Bleu

Here is another before/after series of pictures of a room of my book "Demeures peintes".
This room, as the Old library, is in the XVIIth century castle located near Lyon. At floor level , two nice living rooms open their doors on the terrace and the garden. The light is beautiful during the winter but the photographer and I  were too busy to find time to go on site and shoot the pictures.
We finally made them in July, the light is beautiful too but it does not go very into the rooms.
The Salon Bleu was originally covered with different wall papers.

Most of them were dating back to the end of the XIXth century and were of littel interest. Only the vases over the doors, probably dating back to the early 1800's were protected. The beams on the ceiling and different parts of the walls have been painted in various shades of blue.

All these colors have been weathered by the light and I imagined to try and find some kind of average blue for my paintings.

After some researches and hesitations I decided to create a neo-classical ornament that I thought was consistent with the style of the vases.
It is , technically, one of the most simple rooms presented in the book but certainly one of the most charming.
It was a pleasure for Yves and I to take the pictures. We only had two hours of ideal lighting to do so but everything was well prepared and went smooth.

Here is finally one of the pictures I took in December when the work was just completed ...freezing cold outside ( and inside ) , three inches of snow and a gorgeous light.

Thank you AD.

I have sent several copies of my book, Demeures peintes, to different french magazines in January . The people of Architectural Digest have been the first to show their interest.
Their photographer has come to my booth at Maison et Objet and made a series of pictures, As the theme of their article ( three other artists featture in it) was "Interior Landscapes" they wanted to have me sit in front of one of the two landscapes I was exhibiting.
I was smiling, the gemtle photographer told me not to smile. Then I understood that he probably wanted me to look like a real artist. I tried my best. I am not sure I made it though...Anyway, I think that my ego was liking it a little.

So, here it is, my first time in a top shelf decoration magazine.

Please have a look.II

Artisphere/IDAL people have been kind enough to post an excerpt of "Demeures Peintes". It is about the living room of the house I decorated in Fontainebleau . You will see a few more pictures and this will give you an idea of what the texts in this book sound like.

Before/After .The old library.

I plan to post a series of before/after pictures of some rooms featuring in "Demeures peintes".

This one shows the library of the XVIIth century castle in the second chapter.

I discovered it, at the end of the winter,when I first visited this mansion. I remember being both surprised and puzzled. I did not imagine such a room in this relatively severe looking old building and I wondered what I could do there. I mean , how I could understand this weird mix of post-Renaissance and late XIXth century  and do something with it.

There were pieces or elements I could relate to and like and some others I really disliked.

After the visit I started researching in my personnal documentation and figured out that the overall design was very Italian Renaissance but that some elements were totally alien.

Then,for quite some time, I had to wait for the authorisation of the local historical buildings architect to work in this castle.

After looking at my work he finally decided I was the man of the situation and I could really start thinking about this room.

There is apparently no historical record about the italian painters who decorated this castle in the XVIIth century.Some were quite popular in this area at the time . Frescoes are still visible in one of the towers.

My guess is that these guys created and painted the overall composition for the library and that it has been restored and repainted later .

There are other artworks in the castle, like these painted ceilings in the dining room and the kitchen.

They have probably been painted by a french artist of the XVIIIth century who was quite famous (locally) at the time and who decorated some rooms of the city hall in Lyon. These ceilings are "classified" at the national historical monuments inventory. I observed them closely but could not relate them to the paintings of the library.

There are also more minor paintings in some rooms of the library level.

I would say that these might have been done during the 30s or 40s and I think that the painters who did this are the ones who restored  or repainted the library.

Now that my little inquiry had given me some clues ( but the truth is that I really do not know) I could add my little tune to this old and strange harmony.

Yves and I spent this whole summer afternoon taking pictures and at the end of the day the gold of the old books was still shimmering in the sun.

Ceiling project

The decoration of the ceiling of the large living room in Villa Claudinon was quite a challenge. As I knew I would show this piece in "Demeures peintes" my first idea was to "show off" as much as I could and I thought that a ceiling with figures would be great fro this!

Therefore I started studying different classical models in order to understand the way they are composed. I detected various formulas and I started to sketch my own based of figures I planned to borrow mostly from the end of the XIXth century ( as this is the time period during which the villa was erected). I did a few pen sketch and a color study. At some point I also tried to visualise it on Photoshop , and I forgot about it for a while. 

When I got back to it my vision had changed and I decided to propose something totally different to my client. I worked on a first ornamental composition... 

and eventually found some good documentation on Christophe Huet's ceiling in the Chateau de Champs sur Marne.

Full size drawing of the central pattern

View of the ceiling in the room.

During the installation.

The finished piece.

The second version of ornate ceiling was the one I showed my client for approval and this is the one that features in the book.

I love ceilngs with figures but I prefer the baroque ones. I think that if I had continued on my first idea I could have gotten trapped into a style with which I am not enough connected. I guess this second choice was the most appropriate, for my client, for this beautiful place and for me.

Please have a look.

My friend and colleague Lynne Rutter has been kind enough to publish a post about my book on her blog.
I would like to thank her for this, for her kind ( and flattering) words.
She is one of the best decorative painters out there, with a sharp eye, a perfect taste. I like the way she writes, her irony and humor. She sent me a bunch of questions and I answered as if I was talking to her.
She has also corrected my english . I like reading good english , even more so when I can pretend it is mine.
Please have a look : http://www.ornamentalist.net/2010/12/pascal-amblard-demeures-peintes.html

Detail of a painting featuring in the "Gallery" section of "Demeures Peintes"