Thank you Maison Chic !

 Here are pictures of a nice article in the last issue of a charming french decoration Magazine named
 " Maison Chic" ( no translation needed I am sure).
I do not know the whole story but somehow they got in contact with an Interior Designer I have been working for these last years . Her name is Martine Di Matteo and as she worked in the US for quite some time she now has a very good american clientele in Paris.
Her style is usually a mix of a typically french XVIIIth century revival  and more modern elements with brightly colored curtains, cushions ...etc. Charming, elegant , classical but never boring , I like what she does and this appartment in Paris is a good sample of her work.
It is located in the famous Place des Vosges , a marvellous example of our XVIIth century architecture.

The house is located right at the back of one of the buildings at a corner of the square , perfectly calm and in the very heart of Paris.

Here is the cover of the magazine with a couple of shots of the appartment.

Here are now some views of the living room and kitchen where two of my paintings are ...

...and now let us focus on the paintings.

First an ornament inspired from an XVIIIth century design for a ceiling.

I called it "Audran", the name of the famous french ornemanist whose design inspired me.

And now some views of the other two artworks.

This one is a painting I created two years ago for a show called "New Trends" that took place in Bergamo during the International Salon of Decorative Painters.

It is in fact the first of a whole series of paintings I called 'Neo Style".

A mix of simplified classical ornaments and realistic"views" or details of " Marie-Antoinette" by S.Coppola.

The ornament is painted with casein and the views in oils directly over my very absorbant lime based background.

The last painting is inspired by Giandomenico Tiepolo ...another elegant young aristocrat of the end of the "Siecle des Lumieres"... ( casein on canvas)

Three days in Antwerpen

Chantal Siebens and Jan Lhermitte are two Salon friends. They have been running a school, Ideefiks, in Antwerpen for many years and last year they invited me for one of their masterclasses.

Belgium is a fabulous country of painters. From Van Eyck and Rubens to Magritte they have given birth to major painters and they also have the strongest tradition of classical european decorative painting ( marbling and graining in particular). I was glad and honored to go there and teach for the first time.

The plan was to organize a short class, I asked them to pick up a "three day" panel their students would like me to teach. They chose the "Vase and Drapery" , a painting I had created a few years ago for a class at the Mural School.


Chantal and Jan live in a typical house they bought years ago and skillfully renovated...

The group of 12 peolple filled up the classroom  but the teacher's spot is big enough to have everyone comfortably installed for the demos.

We began with the landscape in the morning, were finished by the end of the afternoon  and had time to get started on the vase ...

Most of the second day was spent painting the vase and again , by the end of the day we were able to move to the next element : the drapery...

...we have had a perfect weather, the food was very good and the backyard of the school is ideal for outdoor lunches...

Views of the classroom on the third morning...

The traditionnal group picture.

Jan, Pascal, Chantal...

My panel after three days of fun and efforts.

On Sunday morning, before I drove back home  Jan and Chantal took me for a quick tour of the city.

Of course we went to Rubens house ( I guess I will post about it some day).

In the main street of Antwerpen there are statues of Teniers and Van Dyck and  Rubens ...painters are definitely rockstars over there!!

William Cochran

I first met William Cochran in 1998, in Washington DC. during the first international Salon of decorative painters I attended.
I heard about the Community Bridge in Fredericks  (MA) and immediately felt and understood this guy was special. People would show a lot of respect and he was also very kind and respectfull to others.
I guess we met a couple of times after this, I am not so sure. I would visit his website on a regular basis, impressed by the pictures.
By the end of 2008 he called me as I was teaching at Pat Ganino's school "Creative Evolution". He told me he was painting big murals and would need help for the landscapes.
This was a "no-brainer' as Pat says and indeed I said YES before any neuronal conection had time to initiate !
In 2009 I travelled to Frederick and spent a couple of weeks helping him on a set of murals for the Herrshey Museum.
They show , in the background, all the major buildings of the Herrshey "estate"...

 and the foreground is made off two trompe l'oeil low walls one of which includes a niche whith objects.

On the central panel , a group of kids seem to be casually gathered around Mr.Herrshey himself.

I am sure that having seen these pictures you understand why I was so happy to be part of ...this.

Working with William has been a strong experience for me.

I learnt how to really focus on the value/color parameters with a much higher intensity I would do on my own.

It felt a little unconfortable for a few days but I got used to it ...painting slower, trying hard to see and reproduce the right color, check out the relationships between my tones.

This is one of the things I learnt on a practical level .

On another level I discovered what a mural artist is about.

William is a guy who has thoughts, ideas, visions and makes them real through painting.

He sets up goals for himself, demanding ones and seems to stop only when he has reached them.

Painting is a means to an end , the tool and technique he has chosen to carve his vision in the stuff dreams are made of .

This was new to me.

I am coming from the other end of the spectrum. I am a craftsman . I gradually become an artist.

Working with William has been the strongest help I ever had in this evolution.

Please , go see his website.

Parrots , peacocks and other birds

Birds are quite frequently used to ornate decorative paintings and bring some life and animation in otherwise too quiet compositions...
I remembered I had painted a few parrots but when I started researching in the pictures of my murals and paintings I noticed that there was a nice variety of winged creatures...here they are.

...blue parrots in a boy's room in Provence...

...fantasy birds in Louis XV decorative panels...

...work in progress, class panel...

...cockatoo in a mural for York Wallcoverings...

...peacocks and magpie in murals for a castle of the Loire valley...

...fantasy bird in a ceiling study...

...rooster in a french countryside scenery...

...swallows in a baroque ceiling...

... seagull in seascape ...

...my daughter and the goldfinch , a memory of Carel Fabritius...

...study of parrots from a XVIIth century model.