Wishing everyone a safe and marvelous New Year !

#newyear #newyearseve #newyear2014 #art #artist #painter

#mural #murals #muralist #art #artist #popart #andywarhol #andywarholquotes #comics
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#mural #murals #custommural #muralist #art #artist #faux #fauxfinish #fauxpainting #exteriorpaint #garagedoor #pablopicasso 
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#mural   #murals   #custommurals   #faux   #fauxfinish  #fauxpainting   #art   #artist   #marble   #columns   #jameswhistler 
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#mural #murals #custommural #muralist #art #artist
#faux #fauxfinish #fauxpainting #Degas
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#mural #murals #custommural #zebra #art #artist #muralist
#faux #fauxfinish #fauxpainting #pablopicasso
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Ciao Bella ! ...custom murals and faux painting

We all have places we dream of visiting one day. For me, Italy is on that list. Thanks to the Mediterranean influence in southwest Florida I've at least had the chance to visit there. Vicariously through murals I've floated in a gondola in Venice, run through Sunflower fields, tasted grapes on the vine, and stood among glorious ruins. 

Whatever place you're dreaming of , I can create a mural in your home so you can retreat  every day away from the hustle and bustle of life.

#mural  #murals  #muralist  #custommural #faux #fauxfinish #fauxpainting #art #artist

http://www.swanstudio.net/

#art #artist  #mural #murals #custommurals #tropicalmural #faux #fauxfinish #fauxpainting
http://www.swanstudio.net/

#mural #murals #custommurals #faux #fauxfinish

http://www.swanstudio.net/

Custom Mural and Faux Painting : You Be Tarzan, I'll Be Jane

You be Tarzan, I’ll be Jane

Most of the time, when I have a client request a jungle theme mural it’s for a small child’s room. But this custom mural project was for a pre-teen girl. And as we all know, pre-teen girls can be very opinionated with what they want. No exception here. The wish/want list seemed simple enough: Jungle look, a monkey in a tree, and make sure there’s purple in the plants somewhere. Originally the concept was to have jungle trees arching into a wall where the day bed was to placed.  And that’s how it started, but the jungle grew and grew. By the time it was all done the ceiling and the upper half of the walls where sky blue, the lower half of the room was jungle green, dark green carpet was placed on the floor, a “jungle” border was painted completely around the room- with gorgeous cascades of purple flowers, bamboo poles served to canopy netting and jungle vines over the bed and windows, a purple cheetah bedspread covered the daybed, and two jungle cats sat on the bed guarding this adorable teen style jungle theme room.  I painted a wood dresser piece to have different animal skins on each section. The end result was a young ladies dream room.

Tip: To protect the top of the dresser , glass was ordered cut to fit. The glass protects the zebra skin painting and makes it very easy to clean-up  dust, ink marks, make-up etc.

#mural #custommural  #childrensmural #teenageroom #fauxfinish #fauxpainting #themeroom #swanstudioinc

www.swanstudio.net 

Mural Painting : For the Birds

Inspiration can come unexpectedly. Such was the case when I painted a tropical motif mural for community club house. I had already created an entire tropical theme throughout the clubhouse with fun casual window treatments, palm trees, accessories, and wall paper. The stage area sometimes used for singers, but more often used by Bingo M.C., was placed in front of cinder block. So we decided to paint tropical plants along the bottom that coordinated with the wall covering in an adjacent room. The mural was fun, but felt like something was missing. As I stood back pondering what was needed, the Ladies’ Bridge players came in to the clubhouse for their weekly card game. One of the ladies, about 4ft tall and 85 years old, asked me what I was doing staring at the wall. When I explained  she took a moment to ponder, and replied,” It needs birds” ! She was right, it needed birds. So the next morning I returned and added in birds that could be seen on the local golf courses.  And for those who want to get a truly up-close inspection, I added in some local bugs and lizards.

Tip : The entire mural has a clear coat top to protect the mural. 

#Tropicalmural  #Commercialmural #Fauxpainting #muralpainting #Custommural

http://www.swanstudio.net/

NAPW -Cape Coral- #Halloween meeting

It was 'Spooktacular" as professional photographer #RobBricneo , as the Joker greeted the guests.

#CarolWonderly of Wonderly Home Staging gave us tips and tidbits.

And Chapter President, Nanette Todd ( aka Betty Boop ) ate spiders !

Event was hosted by #MartyWisher of Swan Studios Inc

Jello'd "Bloody hands"

Marty gave Carol what she asked for...a "Big Glass" of wine

http://www.robertophotosnaplesfl.com/

http://www.wonderlyhomestaging.com/

http://www.swanstudio.net/

http://www.napw.com/Index.cfm

NAPW ( National Assoc of Professional Women) Cape Coral Chapter - Halloween meeting

Date of Event : 10-22-2013
Time : 6pm-8-pm
Details :
National Association of Professional Women Cape Coral chapter monthly meeting. Connect and promote your business. This month Carol Sperlak Miller Wonderly will be showing how to make your place a true "Wonder" with her staging tips. Event is ladies only. Please let your fellow women owned businesses know of the event .Be sure to bring your business cards. Please RSVP so food and beverage can be planned.
.....ladies 'tis the season...so come in costume !!!!

General location : Cape Coral, Fl

Specific location : for details, please rsvp to : marty.swanstudios@gmail.com

#NAPW #CapeCoral 
http://www.napw.com/Index.cfm
http://www.wonderlyhomestaging.com/
http://www.swanstudio.net/

Help My Wall's On Fire!

Anyone I've painted with or for has heard me say repeatedly “It’s only paint”….meaning, what’s the worst that can happen, re-paint again, right? Painting a room is not a life and death situation. Oh sure, occasionally I find out that furniture is arriving days sooner than expected and I may have to paint late into the day to accommodate. But no need to shed tears…………….But sometimes….panic sets in for a client. You know, life changing events like a mother-in-law coming to visit, or a client finding out that Thanksgiving dinner has been assigned to their house last minute. And there was that one harrowing night when my next door neighbor interrupted dinner…………………

The kids and I had just sat down to late dinner when we heard a knock at the door. It was our neighbor next door in tears! My heart sank, obviously thinking some tragedy had befallen. It took a few minutes to understand her through the sobs. Seems she had decided to faux paint a focal wall in her living room and it wasn't turning out right. OK, first, Praise the Lord, no one is injured or dead. Secondly, and I actually asked her this…why didn’t you just ask me to do it for you to begin with? She said she didn’t want to over ask favors since I’d already done four rooms in her home. That’s silly, but let’s go see what’s going on in the living room….I mean, how bad could it be,right?

Oh my soul! I had never seen such a botched up paint job. Now her home was fairly new and this ”focal wall” had already been painted by with a flat finish standard white latex paint by the builder. Somehow, some way, this frottage faux was bubbling up and seemed as if the only thing holding any of the paint on the wall were the gusts of air from the ceiling fan. I asked to look at the base color paint can. It was a deep red color, latex paint. She said she had painted on several coats. OK, that can’t cause this problem…..Then she had painted on a glaze mixed with a more orange shade latex paint. I inspected those products. Absolutely fine, that shouldn't cause this either….by now the kids were having a grand ole time peeling the paint off the wall creating shapes of continents….and in walks her husband. I told him I was baffled. None of the products could have caused this and that it appeared as if there was something between the original wall paint and the red paint, …. something oily. They looked at each other. “What”? I asked. The husband then said “ Well, I did paint a primer on the wall yesterday could that have caused this”? “Doubtful, You used wall primer, right? What brand”? He told me (I won’t mention the brand name since the product was not the culprit) It was the best brand to use.  Hmm…. Then he sheepishly asked if it mattered how old the product was. Well, all the cans I’m looking at had just been purchased……………except I had yet to look at the wall primer can. He had already tossed the can out………and then admitted he had the can for many years. Seems it was from his house prior and it had been going stagnant in our sweltering Florida air. …Oh, but it gets better… He then admits he didn’t even shake it up. He thought it would be OK to paint the top layer clear separated portion onto the wall !!!! Are you kidding me?! Who does that?! She ranted at him. I told him I couldn't look at him. He left. She poured a cocktail .And the kids and I stayed up til the wee hours of the morning fixing the now properly painted beautiful frottage focal wall.

Tip: Yes, It is good to use a primer. Use the right primer for your wall type or situation. And make sure that the product is new and well shaken.

We All Live In A Yellow Submarine

I love painting murals for children’s rooms! Children’s imaginations are boundless! I knew Jacob wanted an underwater theme room, but he blew my mind with his request for it to be a submarine room. At first I thought he meant he wanted the room to be a submarine  which would have been awesome )…but no, he wanted a submarine IN his room ! Challenge on…..

The room was first sprayed with three shades of latex paint going from light aqua on the ceiling to deep teal on the lower portion of the wall to achieve that “submerged” feeling. This was further enhanced with deep teal plush carpeting.  Adorable sea creatures like jellyfish, turtles, hammer-head sharks were painted around the room, on the furniture, and even on the window top treatment.  There is even the underside of a shark painted on the ceiling which looks as if it is about to attack as you lie on the bed.

The room’s focal point …. A submarine!!!! I used a solid wood bunk bed as the frame work for the submarine. The lower bunk  bed was removed to create a play area so he could pretend to be in a submarine. The top bunk is the sleeping area. And as he climbs the side steps up to the top bunk,he is greeted by a ginormous  Octopus ! The octopus is so large that the tentacles wrap up into the ceiling, side walls, and around the submarine bed.

                           What child ( or adult ) wouldn’t want to live in a yellow submarine !!!

Tip The submarine front panel was cut high enough  to become a security barrier …and served to hide the sleeping area, just in case little boys “forget” to make their bed.

To contact artist Marty Wisher : 

marty.swanstudios@gmail.com

or visit www.swanstudio.net

A Baby Land Down Under

It was so much fun creating an Australian themed mural for this adorable infant nursery  ! The mother had selected a bedding with kangaroos  and koalas. So, of course, I had to go all out , bringing  them around the room.  The focal wall ( where the baby crib settles in front ) is painted as a  burst of sunshine flanked by 3-dimensional trees. Stuffed koalas were secured up into the branches. The tribal style  motif, used in the baby bedding is then painted around the room as a border.

Tip : The tree trunks are created from pvc pipes cut in half. The limbs and leaves are placed into drilled holes and secured with glue.

We also took great care on how far the limbs hung down , for safety reasons.

Singing the "Blues"

We were presented with a super fun challenge to change a formerly vanilla room into an Ultra Contemporary Living space.  And the palette we would be working with were primary colors….on the furniture ! The home owner’s girlfriend moved into his house and brought with her a round super comfy fits three snuggle chair, modular royal blue sofa, red accent chair, and an area rug that looked like a Picasso piece. The hardware was brushed nickel and she had a desire to use a metal finish on the wall.

The first step was making sure the right technique was used in burnishing silver onto the focal wall. Metallic paints are notorious for leaving trail marks, so technique is crucial. There was also an arch entry with raised relief, so that was deepened with black granite paint blended with the silver metallic.

After several trial attempts of sidewall colors ( offwhites were to blah, red was too much or just too wrong, medium warm neutrals were too----what’s the word? Horrible) , we found the answer ….. Royal Navy ! The deep blue allows the silver metallic to Shine as the focal point and gives the room a much needed balance.

www.swanstudio.net

Tip : Dark pigment colors like Navy can take a few weeks to totally cure. Take caution not to wash or use chemicals to clean the walls until paint is fully hardened.