I had the great pleasure of meeting and lunching with one of our favorite customers (and a Featured Artist in Modello by Design) on Friday: Robbie Calvo.

Robbie was on the West coast for meetings in LA regarding his new design show “pitch” to the decorating networks. We got to see the 5 minute piece that showcases his concept and creative abilities. I truly don’t have time to watch many of these shows (and frankly they all tend to look the same) but Robbie’s is definitely a “cut above” in taste, style, and approach to most of the shows out there. An accomplished musician, he incorporates his composing abilities into his room design, focusing first on the rythm (the foundation walls, floors, etc), then the harmony (main pieces like furnture) and finally the melody (accessories and assorted fluff). During the process, he also composes a short piece of music to compliment the room design. It is REALLY good!
 

Shown above is the room that was used for the decoration in “the pitch” and, let me tell you, it looks even better on film.

Robbie has been so generous to create a wonderful page on his website talking about his association with Modello Designs and we are happy to sponsor his success AND his upcoming show. He’s a truly talented and humble person who deserves all the success that will be coming his way. I can’t wait to watch more!

Recently on Muralsplus, a message board that I help moderate, there was a discussion about faux and decorative finishing as “art”. Well, of course it’s always been art, silly, but recently more and more decorative artists are applying their ideas and techniques to “wall art”: canvases, framed boards, tapestry hangings and such. In fact, I don’t know too many decorative finishers these days who don’t dream about coming down off their ladders to create cool, creative stuff in the comfort of their studios while wearing their jammies. That’s MY dream, for sure!

Well, one of our customers, April Everhart of Wallexpress in North Carolina decided to start working towards that dream after I mentioned Etsy as a great place to sell her canvas art.

April has a new shop, Wallexpress, that features her canvases that incorporate stenciling, raised freeform pattern and lots of cool finishes. Best of luck April!

A year ago at this time, and throughout last summer, our Modello team had their hands full fulfilling multiple orders for a large hospitality project. The architectural firm that was handling the design and decoration of the new Grand Del Mar resort in North San Diego chose a wide variety of Modello patterns to highlight and accentuate the Moorish theme. Besides a ceiling border that went in each of over 300 guest suites, there were many public areas, particularly ceilings, that were treated with custom-fit frames and medallions. Oh, to have a total decorative budget in the millions! I just recently had professional photographs done, and here are a select few-

This retail promenade is one of my favorite spaces. All the natural light really reflects on the gold leafed medallions. 

I LOVE the colors used in this downstairs hallway. You can see how the patterns were designed to perfectly fit and confirm to the curved ceiling spaces. 

This long hallway by the meeting rooms features multiple recessed ceiling spaces that are framed by a highly ornamental border. The gorgeous uplighting really serves to highlight it! 

There are also some villas (for sale) on the property that got some fabulouse coffered ceiling treatments. Here, a cast of thousands (almost) from a local decorative painting contractor, Shauna Decker, works to complete the ceiling in a very tight deadline before the grand opening. 

And they made it! You can see more photos here.

Final photography by Gary Conaughton.

I feel like I have been opening presents all day! You see, today was the deadline for submissions for customer photos for the soon-to-be published Modello by Design book. As artists ALWAYS work best under pressure, many waited till the last day to submit and I am thrilled to say that it looks like we will have almost 100 decorative artists and their work (and our Modello patterns) represented in this book. We have the basic layout designed to now we will be busy, busy, busy putting it all together in under two weeks. Special shoutout to Lauren here at Modello Designs who is doing a fabulous job managing all of this and will be laying it all out in the gorgeous way we’ve come to know and love.

More shoutouts go to….

Robbie Calvo,

Barb Skivington of Faux Works

Raina Gentry of Walls of Pompeii

and Susan Allemand, Out of This World Finishes.

When I started Modello Designs, my decorative masking company, 4.5 years ago I envisioned that it would provide working decorative artisans with a much-needed artistic tool that would allow them to greatly expand their abilities to provide custom artwork to their clients and to spread their wings to explore new techniques and mediums for surface decoration.

Every time I see a customer photo come back, showing our designs in inspiring interior applications, I get to realize my initial goals for this company and rejoice in that fact that what we do here helps to bring more beauty into people’s lives and homes. I’ve just recently put the finishing touches on a whole new round of customer art that we have added to our Showcase area here. Please enjoy this sampling and click through to see more!

Featured Artists: Left column top to bottom-Debbie Hayes/Faux Design Studio, Georgia Morrow/SFW Plasters by Georgia, Gwen Ware/Bohemian Spirit, Susan Allemand/Out of This World. Right column top to bottom-Norman Goodwin/Specialty Faux Finishes, LLC, Gina Wolfrum/Elegant Finishes, Kimberly Longo, Christine Dilts/Painter Sisters, Christine Zill. 

The World of Concrete is a HUGE show-full of testosterone and all things that testosterone infused beings like: Mega-large machinery, tools, big displays of bags of cement and the like. Tucked away out back of the three huge halls filled with this stuff is a small area dedicated to “Artistry in Concrete” where 10 people are selected to show their stuff on a 10′ x 10′ slab that is poured just for the occasion. For the last fours years Modello Designs has supported some participating artists with design and products and this year we were pleased to have our product used by a couple of lovely ladies!

Stevi Michner was there representing her Detroit-based decorative concrete company, Surface. She created a concrete sculpture of a kimono using overlays and colorants from Colormaker Floors and decorated it with a customized version of our EasPan 114 Plum Blossom tree.

My friend Nancy Jones from Artworks! Spokane (and a participant on our recent Italy trip) create this very cool tiger mural. She worked with Aaron on developing the artwork into a two-layer Modello that was used with custom-tinted SkimStone. She achieved the subtle shading and color variations by applying by both brush and trowel and adding in more hand-painting after the Modello pattern was removed. The only sad thing about this is that they jack-hammer these slabs up at the end of the show. I hope you got better pics than I Nancy and that you get to apply this somewhere with some more permanence!

Susan Bickford of Singing Walls in Nashville does really exquisite, high quality work as you can see from the photos on her website. Nice flash on that site intro BTW!

This ceiling treatment that she did with one of my favorite Modello patterns, OrnCen162 is a prime example. To me, color selection is key to creating an elegant treatment that looks like it was born to be in a room and this totally hits the mark.

Susan was able to surprise her husband with a really special and personal custom art piece this past Christmas by working with Dawn on our graphic staff. An original photo of the lucky man on his Harley was used to create a custom Modello that Susan incorporated with her specialty decorative and textural finishes on framed canvas. Vrrrrm. Vrrrrm!

Carol Leonesio is a lovely lady, long-time customer and fellow blogger in Massachusetts who tracks the ups and downs of her decorative painting projects.

One of my favorite projects on her site is the Magnetic Memo Board, and not just because she used our Damask and Trompe L’oeil Molding in one of my alltime fav color schemes. I had been toying with the idea of doing this in one or some of the offices here and it’s good to hear how someone else approached it. Carol recently updated me with the info that she thinks that 4-5 thin coats of the Magnetic Primer would be better than 2  or 3 as she has a hard time getting the magnets to stick. I am wondering about just painting on sheet metal? Does anyone else have an experience with this to share?

Another one that caught my eye was this darling Nursery Mural that uses our Elegant Fruit Branch as a frame.

In a recent post on floorcloths she has done, she shared this one which I think is MOST clever!

Carol also shares her marketing tips, as in this post that shows an oversized postcard that she had printed and hand delivered door-to-door in a neighborhood she wanted to target. It’s easy to see how Carol keeps busy!

In going through one of the many stacks of things I rip out of magazines I rediscovered this Elle Decor feature from months ago on the opening of the Reem Acra flagship boutique in New York. Ms. Acra’s passion and business revolves around luxury bridal and eveningwear designs. I ripped out the page not because I needed a gown (but they are gorgeous, aren’t they?!) but because it had a beautiful gold design on white floor: Unique and elegant and oddly familiar….

After picking it up again and actually reading the copy I realized that it was the familiar work of one of our favorite decorative concrete customers, Dominick Cardone The Concrete Impressionist. One of Dom’s specialties is gilding with 24k gold on concrete and he had been sending us progress shots but we never saw the final result-until now. Isn’t this just swanky?

Here’s Dom two years ago at the Artistry in Concrete event at the World of Concrete show where he used custom-designed Modellos for a 9/11 tribute-again with his special gilding techniques.

OOOH. I SO-O-O-O love this and I am so doing something like this in my new home, uh, I mean office.

Our customer, Heather Mueller of Metamorphasis Designs in Ogden, Utah spent a year working in this wonderful home in Las Vegas for a wonderful woman that just wanted more, more more pattern. That would be my dream client.

Heather masterfully layered pattern after pattern using a combination of Modello Designs and Royal Design Studio stencils all throughout the house. They even used some patterns to make the molds for the individual tiles they cast and put on the ceiling.

For some of the panel designs they also incorporated stencil designs from The Stencil Library. Props to Helen and Chips. Did I mention that I LOVE this?