In this case, two thirds of the stone in the bathroom was real; one third of it was to be painted. The floor, the base boards, the sink’s countertop, the tub exterior and the shower enclosure were all marble. I was asked to paint the wainscoting (short wall), chair rail and cupboard below the sink to match. Below is the approved sample board. The marble is similar to Verde Rameggiato, an Italian stone.

Here’s a before photo. The surfaces to be marbled are taped off in blue tape and painted black; the fabric wall covering is protected with plastic. I’ve applied the first glaze coat to the wall, a mottled green. You can see the real marble on the floor.

As usual, I forgot to document my progress. This is the after photo.

Here’s a better look at the short wall. I built up the finish with five or six coats of green glaze, using a sponge and damp cheesecloth to create irregular patterns. Several layers of veining came next before I came back into the pattern with black paint on a small brush to open up the marks so they would match the real stone. The final varnish is high gloss.

Almost all of the marble you’re seeing below is real. The only painted portion is the short wall and chair rail on the right.

When painting finishes like this, which are called trompe l’oeil, (“fool the eye”), it’s helpful to remember that your brain wants to believe that those painted surfaces are stone. One way to fool the eye is to continue any pattern or veining in the real marble onto the painted surface. That’s why the painted walls look like they’re connected to the real base board.

This little section is next to the mirror above the sink. The wide band of marble on the right is real stone. The narrow band that butts against it is the wall, painted to match. This is a good example of how the marble pattern continues from the real stone to the painted surface.

The bathroom took five days to complete. I had never painted this particular marble before I did this job. Most stone and wood can be broken down into layers of color and pattern. If you can look at a material and reconstruct it in your mind in this way, you can paint it. I figured out the general plan at home by painting a bunch of samples, then was able to fine tune the look when I did the job. Although it’s a bit nerve-wracking to work this way, it’s also quite satisfying to solve a puzzle like this and to see it all come together in the end.

The project I’m about to describe, the largest faux wood graining job I’ve ever done, walked the line between those two pieces of advice. The job was in a house on Long Island, about an hour’s drive from Manhattan. Here’s a Before photo.

All of the wood that’s painted blue — the panels, the spindles, the little bits and pieces — was to be painted to match the existing oak, which you can see above. Here’s the After shot. The designer stripped the old wallpaper before we began. Base painters painted the blue wood to light brown, the correct base color for oak.

Here it is from a different perspective. Again, a Before shot. Oh, did I mention there was an upstairs to do as well?

The After shot, from a slightly different perspective so you can see both the upstairs and downstairs paneling.

The thought of doing such a huge job pulled my stomach into a knot. If I underestimated the time needed to complete it, I would eat the cost. The wood we were matching was integrated into the structure of the staircase and the room, so if we didn’t match it exactly, there was no place to hide. Plus there was all that driving to get there.

Still, I wanted to take the job. It was a great test of skill, plus a real showcase for the designer, whom I’d worked with for ten years. Besides, I wanted to know for sure that I could do a big project like this.

Here’s a close up of the completed painted wood. The vertical posts are real oak, as is the chair rail and the 2-inch tall base board running along the floor. The finish on the panels, stiles and rails required three coats of glaze, two layers of detail work and a final coat of satin varnish.

Here’s another shot of both floors. About 90% of what you see is painted oak. It took three of us four weeks to complete everything. Actually, one artist spent the entire four weeks on the 150 spindles, applying three coats of glaze and then the final coat of varnish. I’m surprised she’s still speaking to me!

Big jobs like this move faster and faster as the days pass, as the techniques and routine of the process become second nature. I was counting on that, and we  finished two days ahead of schedule.

Here’s a lower view, also showing the faux oak curved doorway into the living room.

This is shot from the staircase, looking toward the living room on the left and straight ahead to the dining room. On the right is the front door, which we also painted as oak.

And here’s the rest of the second floor, also painted.

This is a close up of painted panels with the first floor’s real oak crown molding below. The staircase’s hand rail was real mahogany.

The hardest part of the job, the part that came closest to biting off more than I could chew, came out of left field. It wasn’t the painting, it was the driving. It took much longer to travel back and forth than anticipated, which created 10- to 11-hour long work days. Not good when your job is a physical one. Still, it was worth it, knowing for sure that I could take on a project of this size and scope. And when the designer came to see it when we were done, he couldn’t tell what was real and what was painted. Success!

As the building staff puzzled over it, the contractor, one of my steady clients, arrived and said, “Well, it’s obvious, we’ll paint it as marble and make it disappear!” Having never seen this type of work done, the manager was doubtful, but with no better solution presenting itself, agreed. A quick call, and I was scheduled to jump in and wave my magic wand. The panel was about 20 x 24 inches/51cm x 61 cm.

I taped off the edges of the door, which was flush with the marble, protected the floor and started in on it. It took three or four hours.

When painting marble, there are so many layers involved that things always look a bit dodgy at the beginning. I tactfully ignore the doubtful glances cast my way, although once, on a wood graining job, the homeowner called the designer to ask, “Are you sure she knows what she’s doing?” But the streaks and blobs all come together at the end and suddenly it’s marble.

It was interesting that the building staff couldn’t come up with the solution of painting the door to match the stone. It made me wonder about what encourages and what stifles imagination. As Einstein, my favorite vegetarian, said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

So, in the interest of encouraging creativity, I did a little research and have compiled a few pointers for fostering imagination. These are intended for children, but seem to apply to adults as well.

1. Be curious.

2. Go outside and play.

3. Choose toys that let you play make-believe and make up as many stories as possible.

4. Turn off the tv.

5. Play on your own now and then.

6. Read.

7. Make art using stuff you already have.

8. Give yourself time to putter around.

9. Set aside a space for playing.

10. Daydream.

I think we should all give that a whirl. Sounds like a relaxing afternoon!

This first example is part of a full-room mural in a dining room, painted with a pretty landscape consisting of many birds and weeping willow trees. Unfortunately, water damage occurred just above the door to the kitchen, below the crown molding, ruining the design. The contractor repaired the area, then called me in. The damaged area was about 8 x 16 inches.

Here’s the match. No more patch!

This next example is a tight photo of a beautiful marble fireplace surround. It had been damaged, and the marble man fixed it by splicing in something that didn’t match. At all. Needless to say, the homeowner wasn’t amused. The repaired area is about 1-1/2 inches long.

Paint to the rescue!

This last example wasn’t an emergency, but was well-timed, since the apartment was on the market and scheduled to be shown to prospective buyers. I painted over several outlet covers to blend them into the surrounding wood, creating a seamless look in the living and dining rooms. If you’re spending a gazillion dollars on a New York apartment, this is a nice detail for the realtor to point out.

This outlet cover was installed in the baseboard and took about an hour to paint, most of which was spent on my side, lying on the floor, using a brush with about four hairs in it.

I love these little jobs; they make me feel like The Paint Doctor. The scenario is generally the same: I receive a panicked phone call and dash over to inspect the extent of the injury while the homeowner hovers anxiously over my shoulder. Then I return with my little black bag of magic tricks and tend carefully to the wound until all signs of trauma are erased. Cue sounds of joy from the client, and I’m out the door in record time, ready for my next house call.

First, the offending stone was sanded, primed and base coated in a solid gray.

Using acrylic glaze, plastic wrap and a 2-inch wide brush, I created patterns with the same dimension and flow as the original stone. The plastic wrap was laid onto a wash of color, then pulled off quickly, creating random patterns with crisp edges, a look that can’t be created easily or quickly with a brush. Then I went back in with a small brush for detail work.

The “after” photos are a bit confusing because the fireplace backs up against a mirrored wall that’s partially covered in paper, so you’re seeing both the newly painted surface and its reflection.

To tie the stone together, I painted the top to look as if the pattern below was a natural extension of the pattern above. It was sealed with three coats of water-based varnish.

When I’m painting marble and other complex finishes, it helps to play music or the radio. It’s always easier to paint or create if I’m listening to something. But why is that?

The theory is that our left brain is verbal and rational, thinking serially and in language; our right brain is non-verbal and intuitive, thinking in patterns and pictures. I’ve discovered that when I give my language-loving left brain something to do by listening to music, my visual-loving right brain is free to go along its merry way, fluidly solving creative puzzles with agility, falling into that blissful state of flow where time loses all meaning and the work is effortless. If I’ve given my left brain something to do, it doesn’t come knocking, trying to butt in and boss things around. Many artists work with music playing, and that’s one reason why.

I learned this a long time ago from the classic instruction book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. If you’re someone who says, “I can’t draw at all,” this book will prove you wrong. It’s your left brain that’s sneering, “you’re no good at this.” Your right brain has something else to say, and if you can get your left brain out of the way, amazing things happen. After all, every one of us drew as a child, without inhibition. We can learn how to draw well at any age, we just have to send our bullying left brain off on an errand for a little while and let our right brain run around gleefully by itself.

To complete the marble story, here’s what the fireplace looked like after all of that blue tape was pulled off, the dust swept away, the mirror polished and the furniture installed. Such a difference!

During the summer, my boyfriend Tom and I spend most weekends out at his beautiful little house on Long Island, about two hours east of NYC. When we arrive on Friday evening, we pick up the local paper and it’s my job to find the most promising yard sales, then map out our Saturday route. In the morning, we’re off on the hunt. Sometimes we return dejected and empty handed (“What kind of sales were those? Who sells half empty paint cans?”) but now and then we suss out some sweet little finds.

On one of our first forays this summer, I picked up this little bird. He had a good, solid weight in my hand. Look at that feather and leg detail! He’s about five inches tall. I don’t mind his chipped beak.

Right away, I had a plan. By that afternoon, with the help of acrylic paint, he became bronze.

On the same outing, Tom found a beautiful stoneware lamp. The shade was unappealing and the color of the base didn’t match a thing in the house. Who cares? He snagged it.

I painted it off-white, glazed it in raw umber using damp cheesecloth, then spattered it in three colors. A new shade and bingo! Into the living room it went.

This is one of my best finds from last summer. Not a paint transformation, but just as satisfying.

This book is amazing: published in 1886, full of gorgeous full-color animal illustrations, not to mention wildly outdated ideas about animals. (“The Hippopotamus is a homely beast, with an exceedingly thick hide. The teeth of the Hippopotamus are whiter and more valuable than those of the elephant, and its tough skin is used for a variety of purposes.”) Yikes! Glad those days are over.

The color plates inside are rich and vibrant. This spread of bears has no hunters in it, but I’ve never seen a book of animal illustrations that included so many humans with guns running around in the background. Anyway, perfect for paper crafting on the picnic table. Hello, pencil cups.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for more great finds. Last week I picked up a whole box of dress patterns from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s for one dollar. They’ll make their way into the paper craft world any day now!

Switch plates are usually ugly, a piece of plastic or metal marring a beautifully finished wall. I paint them to match the background, whether it’s a painted finish, plaster, wallpaper, fabric, wood, stone, leather or tile.

In this case, the Powder Room walls are straw marquetry and the switch plate must follow the pattern. I forgot to take a photo before I started, so here’s the plate already in progress.

First, I used a flexible steel ruler to draw the lines of the marquetry across the plate, then painted the pattern with acrylics, followed by a coat of matte varnish. Voila! 90 minutes in all.

Sometimes I think about what the most important skills are for a decorative painter, and after “100% dependable” and “meticulously tidy” comes color matching. It doesn’t matter how well I can mimic a texture; if I can’t match the color, the work will be considered unacceptable.

I’m not sure how a switch plate for a tiny Powder Room has eight control buttons; did I mention detail-oriented clients? These rough labels are replaced with properly printed ones when the lighting controls are resolved.

Here’s a portion of the Powder Room walls between the marble wainscoting and the ceiling.

I had never seen straw marquetry before I worked in this room. It’s similar to wood marquetry, except instead of using wood, the craftsperson is using wheat, rye or oat straw which is split, soaked in water, dyed, ironed and then glued to the wall. It took two weeks for the artist to to painstakingly glue down the straws one at a time to create these beautiful patterns.

Here’s a site highlighting straw marquetry artists, who work with a variety of straws to embellish walls, furniture and objects. I thought painting required patience… it’s nothing compared to this crowd!

A contractor applied the moldings to the door and painted a pale yellow base color. Then it was my turn. First, I hand-painted all of the figure grain (the squiggly lines) with a small brush, breaking up the lines with a comb. This was the hard part and took the better part of a day. The door surface was vertically divided into three planks that butt together so it looked realistic, since oak trees aren’t big enough to provide a single plank spanning the entire width of a door. This also mimicked the treatment on the adjacent real wood paneling.

The next day, I used a special metal roller about two inches wide called a check roller, which creates choppy dashed lines, intended to imitate the pore structure of oak grain. This was rolled to create vertical pore marks overall. Then I mixed the color for the overglaze and brushed it on. I got the color right on the first try, which was nice. Sometimes it takes two coats to build up the color to a match. Once that was dry, I applied a coat of satin varnish. Voila! Finished door. Total time: about 14 hours.

Here’s my bible when it comes to wood graining and other decorative finishes, “The Art of Faux.” The author, Pierre Finkelstein, offers classes in wood graining and other techniques. His workshops are fantastic.

Another excellent book is Professional Painted Finishes, which was written by the founders of The Finishing School, a decorative painting school in Floral Park, NY, also with great classes.