23 July 2012

Frieze Angst

Got my frieze paper samples from Bradbury & Bradbury.
They are breathtakingly gorgeous. And yet ... None of them is right.

The largest one, Land's End, is so ideally Arts and Crafts and so beautiful that considered spending far more than we had budgeted for this, but I simply can't pretend that it is not too large. And it's a coastal view, when I had wanted to echo the riverine environment of Southern Illinois.

 Of the others, which are riverine motifs, the second, River Frieze, is lovely on many counts. It is our hoped for theme, a more modest size that would work well with a lower wall placement, and an entirely budget friendly price, but it is far too much green when paired with our wall paint. The third, Birchwood in the new Rookwood colorway, is perfect, all the colors are ideal and don't overwhelm with the pain we chose, but it is too small. Much too small, even in the new larger format released recently, because this border would need to be placed above the picture moulding to look right in this space. Alas. I had such high hopes, but our space had other plans and our budget rules out asking for a custom print job.

 My next idea is to paint a frieze myself. I can and do paint, landscapes especially well, and murals aren't unknown to me. I can get the colors just right, and I can make it fit. Now to sketch it out.

I've created a board on Pinterest just for collecting inspiration photos. I am thinking of sketching out a 12 foot section and repeating it, or possibly going mostly freehand all around the room. Also, incising the pencilled design into the plaster before painting is looking like a nice touch. I am researching period decorative painting methods right now.

1 comment:

Sharon Kwilter said...

Wow, painting the frieze will be quite the undertaking. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.

I'm still trying to decide what to do with the frieze in my 1912 Craftsman. I may stencil because I'm not good at freehand painting.