I am in the process of planning yet another (my fourth!) Moroccan painting adventure to Peacock Pavilions in late October, 2011, so thought to revisit the results of our last trip where we focused on a VERY fun fabric stenciling project: turning an ordinary canvas tent into a special space for dining, dreaming, and entertaining.

The inspiration for the series of Moroccan stencils based on class Fez-style embroidery that I developed for this project came from this lovely book. The graphic patterns seemed to just beg to be translated into stencils! So, I created a whole series of designs that could be mixed and matched and layers in different ways, depending on the needs of the project. We didn’t get a chance to see the tent “all dressed up” while we were there, but could imagine all the possibilities that can arise from a basic black and white color color palette. You can see how Maryam has been able to style and decorate the tent in multiple, beautiful ways and various color schemes.

Such as the beautiful Moroccan blue colors this post….

…my favorite pink accent color in this post…

 …and your basic, elegant black in this post . So chis! Note the stenciled paper placemats! What a fun idea!!

All stencils are from our Moroccan stencil collection at Royal Design Studio.

Stay tuned for my next post, where I will show you this same series of stencil patterns used to create an amazing backdrop for a most deliciously colorful product display….

While pouring back over honeymoon photos to create a slideshow for our wedding reception (yes, I know, VERY backwards!) I came back across my lovely Portuguese pavement pictures, and thought they would be nice to share…Calcada Portuguesa is the art of combining small chiseled and polished pieces of white limestone and black basalt to create beautiful mosaic patterns on wide sidewalks and in stately piazzas. It began in Lisbon in 1849 with a wave design in Rossio Square (4th picture shown below) and soon spread throughout the other major cities of Portugal and even to the colonies. There are literally MILES of this amazing, hand crafted treatment throughout Portugal, and I wish I had shot photos of every one.  Here are but a few…

As you might imagine, this is a painstaking process and a dying art form, but just one of the many delightful things about this small and special country.

As I told you in this blog post, our most recent Peacock Painting trip project in Marrakech was themed around Moroccan embroidery designs from Fez. This style of  embroidery is characterized by a singular color of thread, usually black, on a cream-colored background.

The project was fairly simple and straightforward: stenciling the patterns in black on the interior walls of a canvas tent built especially for entertaining. The stencils were designed to coordinate and combine in various ways to create a unique, overall scheme.

We started with a border. Then added a diamond pattern banded by a different border set on the diagonal.

Then we added a more complex lacy border to complete the dado area.

It probably sounds tedious, but it was actually a LOT of fun. We felt like we were doing an old-fashioned quilting bee. The six of us worked really well together and Maggies’ music mix and nice l-o-n-g lunch breaks kept us humming along.

It WAS nice to near the end though, and as each subsequent “wall” was finished and rehung, we enjoyed being enveloped by our handiwork.

The cat provided a temporary distraction, but other than that was no help at all….

So we continued on to stencil the door panels (that convert to awnings) in a coordinating pattern…

until we got down to the last brush stroke….and then it was Moroccan Mint Tea time! My awesome little flock of Peacock Painters this time were Lisa Wilson, Nancy Jones, Angela Perrone, Alicia “LuLu” Danzig, and Miss Maggie O’Neill.

All of these stencil patterns have now been newly added to the Royal Design Studio website here. There are lots of ways to mix and match them and they will be equally fabulous in both bright and pastel colors!

Have you been harboring a burning, yearning desire to take an extended journey to exotic Croatia? Yeah, me neither. That is, until I saw the website for the newly renovated Lesic Dimitri Palace turned boutique hotel  in Korcula, Croatia. You may be wondering how I stumbled upon this little coastal gem…well, actually, they just happened to have used yards and yards of our custom Modello Decorative Masking Patterns for the restoration of the 18th century Bishop’s Palace and 5 surrounding medeival cottages.

Each of the cottages has been turned into a 5-star guest house and each has a different design theme with interiors influenced by the different regions along Marco Polo’s “silk road” travels, including Venice, China, India, Arabia, and Ceylon.

Some of the artwork is difficult to see due to the nuanced tone-on-tone application, but it’s there if you look closely. If you wander through the website you will also see many inspiring examples of all sorts of architectural allover and stencil pattern applications, as well as breathtaking local scenery. Tempting, isn’t it……book your reservations here.