 Before |
) After |
" I found myself checking the weather through my trompe l'oeil window!"
In a small powder-room without windows, the project was to make it more spacious and “really beautiful & enchanting”.
Design Concept
)
The trompe l'oeil mural was to be painted in an extremely small powder
room without windows, so we designed a mural with five arched windows
opening through faux limestone block walls. We used the theme of French
Limestone for the walls and illusionist wrought iron grilles on the
trompe l'oeil windows because real limestone tiles and wrought iron
light-fixtures appear in the entryway of the house. When one has already
encountered the "real" thing , then the illusion is confirmed when one
sees the "painted" limestone walls and wrought iron grilles in the bathroom.
Creating and experiencing trompe l'oeil paintings and installations offers us (as the artists) and the viewers a delightful sense of "wonder", a suspension of what we believe to be true and real in the world around us - it invites us to shift "realities". It brings up questions about what is real, and what is illusion, not just on the walls of the rooms that have been painted, but in all areas of our lives!
)
The trompe l'oeil mural was to be painted in an extremely small powder
room without windows, so we designed a mural with five arched windows
opening through faux limestone block walls. We used the theme of French
Limestone for the walls and illusionist wrought iron grilles on the
trompe l'oeil windows because real limestone tiles and wrought iron
light-fixtures appear in the entryway of the house. When one has already
encountered the "real" thing , then the illusion is confirmed when one
sees the "painted" limestone walls and wrought iron grilles in the bathroom.
Our Approach
)
We painted directly onto the walls, using acrylic paints. The mirror
is attached to flat drywall behind the sink - the stone "architectural
alcove" inset and the "stone-carved" border to the mirror are illusionary
(trompe l'oeil) paintings on the flat wall.
Once the embroidered trompe l'oeil napkin had been painted in place on the "shelf" beneath the mirror, the client found a real one in her linen closet that matched, to be used as the hand-towel.
)
The painted landscape scene in one of the windows is taken from
a photo of the actual view that one would see if there had been a real
window there (we took the landscape reference photo while balancing
on the side of the building!)… While we were working on the murals,
with all the faux-stone completed, and preparing to start the window-view
painting from the photo reference, we tried to put the photo on the
painted "window-sill", and realized that we had even fooled ourselves!
)
The attraction of trompe l'oeil is illustrated by this little anecdote:
At a dinner party after all work was completed on the home, we were
told that as many as six guests at a time, with their plates of desserts,
were to be found crowded into the tiny room enjoying the "views"!