Choosing Paint Colors

Peter B's inspiring collection of paint samples

Visiting Peter B's home-in-progress, I found this gorgeous display of samples he had collected prior to meeting with me.  This vignette told me so much about his preferences --by what was there as well as what was not there - it made the color consultation for his house much easier.   The people I work with are often so inspiring!

Choosing colors can be frustrating and subjective (how do you know when you have it "right?") because colors can affect us emotionally.  Don't feel bad if you need help navigating this!  There is a science to creating a pleasing palette that works in architecture; just as in designing a palette for a mural or a work of art;  the skills involved are very similar.




Color Consulting by Lynne Rutter  415-282-8820

Lynne Rutter | Murals | Decorative Painting | Color

Featured in Traditional Building Magazine

This month I am featured in Nancy A. Ruhling's article for Traditional Building Magazine entitled "The ABCs of Decorative Ornament: The experts agree Decorative ornament is a big plus in commercial buildings. "

A rooster mural by Lynne Rutter crows cockily at Gilberth's Rotisserie and Grill in San Francisco, CA. The hand-painted oil on copper leaf diptych adds down-home warmth to the industrial-chic interior of the restaurant, which is built in an old cannery in the city's Dogpatch neighborhood. Photo: David Papas

Clem Labine's Traditional Building Magazine is a trade publication which provides resources to architects, designers, and builders involved in preservation and design for public architecture.  It's an honor for me to be interviewed alongside such veteran studios as Canning Studios, EverGreene, and the brilliant muralist Russ Elliot. The article drives home the message that decorative painting is an intrinsic part of a commercial interior that adds to its interaction with the public as well as its overall value.

" ... San Francisco artist Lynne Rutter, who has made murals for restaurants, casinos and hotels, sees her work as art. "People think of decorative painting as being somehow less about expressing oneself and more about decoration, but this is not true of many of us in the field," she says.

The award-winning muralist and colorist is passionate about historic projects. "On the West Coast, there is a lot of creative reuse of our older buildings, so even if the project isn't a 'restoration' per se," she says, "the period detail of a building can be celebrated in its new incarnation, and decorative painting is an excellent way to achieve that sense of history."

Rutter, who is inspired by the works of masters like Vermeer, Fra Angelico and Max Beckmann, travels extensively, picking up ideas along the way. "I collect images of ornament, or moments of great old murals and beautiful surfaces," she says. "Recently, I submitted a design for a dome based on something I saw in a beautiful place I visited in Bulgaria."

Murals are an ideal medium for Rutter, who studied architecture and design at the University of California at Berkeley before she opened her boutique atelier in 1990. Typically, she paints the murals on canvas in her studio and installs them on site. "This process — marouflage — is an excellent technique for saving valuable time and allows for more detailed work to be done in advance," she says. In some projects, like the 900-sq.ft. ornamental ceiling mural created for the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, only the stenciling was done on site "instead of working weeks on site, my team and I were only there for four days."

Rutter points out that decorative painting serves no one style, and that's what makes the work interesting to her. "I have been doing this since the mid-1980s and the popularity of decorative painting has gone up and down over the years, but mainly what I see is a change in the design of the work," she says. "The skills and techniques used are similar even as the definition of 'contemporary' changes from year to year.  "

read the full article at Traditional Building Magazine

 Lynne Rutter Studio

Studio Visit: Adrian Card

Harpsichord soundboard painted by Adrian Card  * 

This week I visited the studio of a great artist closer to home, the San Francisco atelier of my good friend Adrian Card.  Adrian is one of those amazing fellows who is expert at so many esoteric things I can't help but wonder if he was transported here directly from the 17th Century. Or maybe he is possessed by the ghost of some Flemish harpsichord decorator, which would of course be a good thing if you had a harpsichord needing ornamenting, as this just happens to be Adrian Card's specialty.

Flemish harpsichord with strapwork ornament painted by Adrian Card *

Adrian Card at his drafting table, designing Delft-style ornamentation for a guitar.

Adrian comes from an old Dutch-American family:   "My father's ancestors all came over here in the early 17th and 18th centuries, mostly of English and Dutch extraction. They settled in Northern New Jersey in the late 17th century after getting tired of the city life in Manhattan (New Amsterdam). My family has been in the same place ever since. My father was baptized in a church whose graveyard contains the remains of his ancestors who fought in the American Revolution - it's about 5 minutes from where my parents live now and where I grew up." 

Adrian became fluent in Dutch, which he learned by and for studying antique books on painting techniques.

A corner of Adrian Card's Studio, filled with design books and inspiring what's-its.

"I had been fascinated with 17th century Dutch painting since the 6th grade"  Adrian says, "when an art teacher (aptly named Mrs. Farber) showed us slides of some Vermeer paintings... it was like an epiphany. I got interested in how they did it, and started to learn Dutch when I realized how much had been written about technique and whatnot in Dutch, that had never been translated into English."

Reprint of De Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst anders De Zichtbaere Wereld  by Samuel van Hoogstraeten, 1678

Not long after that Adrian painted his first harpsichord soundboard.  "Getting involved in harpsichord decoration only solidified my drive to learn Dutch."

gilt and painted ornament for the inside of a harpsichord, painted by Adrian Card

Adrian studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, and after a brief flirtation with the idea of going to the Hochschule Der Kunste in Berlin, he came to San Francisco where he earned a degree in printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. 
"I have long been fascinated with historic ornament. A fellow-student and friend at SFAI and I both shared a passion for ornamental borders, which was something we needed to keep to ourselves, or risk the ridicule of our neo-neo-neo-expressionist fellow students."

Historic woodblock-printed papers reproduced by Adrian Card for a harpsichord restoration.

hand carved woodblocks for printing harpsichord papers

After graduating from SFAI,  Adrian began to do some historic ornament work for a variety of applications, but when the opportunity to work for a prestigious animation company presented itself, he pursued it. He worked in animation for a number of years before returning to the world of ornament, starting his own business in 1999.

Adrian credits other harpsichord painters for helping him with his career:  "... notably Janine Johnson and Sheridan Germann, who were generous with their time and knowledge, and instrument maker Kevin Fryer, who also taught me a lot." 
His printmaking skills have been useful for creating the hand-printed papers for Flemish harpsichords, "a practice that dates back to the 1500s, when they were employed as an inexpensive way to imitate the expensive Italian custom of ebony and ivory inlay work."  

samples for the decoration of harpsichord and other furniture in Adrian Card's studio

Skills used in harpsichord decoration are also applicable to furniture and murals, and Adrian has completed a number of fantastic commissions using historic ornament of many different periods and styles.

design in progress for a harpsichord case using strapwork ornament

The soundboards of harpsichords (and other instruments) must be painted with particular water-based materials to preserve the sound of the instrument. This means making the paint from raw pigments and materials using historic recipes.

Pigment collection at Adrian Card's studio

The studio is like a walk-in Wunderkammer, filled with inspiring objects, old broken things, old working things, drawers full of designs and past work, as well as collected bits of tiles, insects, minerals and wallpapers.

Historic Avocado Green.

I met Adrian Card some years ago when he joined my guild, Artistic License.  We have since collaborated on some projects as as well as become great friends through our shared love of ornament, collecting, martinis, flea markets, books, and the search for the perfect Victorian light fixture.
During a recent meeting several kindred spirits discussed which animal's urine had the strongest ammonia content needed for making bluest Verdigris pigment.  Ok well, maybe you had to be there.

Adrian Card's studio Wunderkammer includes fluorescent rocks collected near his home town.

Now you can imagine how thrilled I am to be hosting Adrian Card at my own studio in San Francisco,  September 11-13, 2013 
for a fantastic workshop on Strapwork Ornament, 
a favorite of Flemish designers and a great trompe l'oeil device for any number of uses.

Class panel for Adrian Card's Strapwork Ornament workshop

Please have a look at more of Adrian Card fantastic work on his website:  AdrianCard.com
 

pigments, and tiny bug art

And here are some of Adrian Card's favorite influential books:

In Dutch:
De Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst anders De Zichtbaere Wereld   (The Esteemed School of Painting or, The Visible World)   by Samuel van Hoogstraeten, 1678

Hoe Schilder Je Een Druif  (How Does One Paint a Grape)  by Karel van Mander, 1604   and yes, the title is a reference to Parrhasius

Verlichterie-Kunde of Het Regt Gebruik der Water-Verwen   (Illumination or the Right Use of Water Colors) by Willem Goeree, 1697

In English:
A Treatise Concerning the Art of Limning by Nicholas Hilliard, circa 1600

Miniatura or the Art of Limning by Edward Norgate, circa 1627

Medieval & Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting, edited by Mary P. Merrifield, originally published in 1849, now available as Dover reprint




Images in this post by Lynne Rutter except * ©Adrian Card
click on images to view larger

Limner is in the glossary!  of course it is.

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting