Faux Painting, Marbling
Faux Painting Techniques & Marbling Workshop Inspires Painters
by John Strieder
kicked off its inaugural slate of classes with a three-day workshop on marbling, the art of painting a surface to look like classic marble.
Michele Santilli, director of the North American School of Decorative Art in Chicago, taught a class of six at the Institute’s new headquarters in Eugene, Ore. Professional Trade Publications Inc., publisher of PaintPRO and Concrete Decor magazines, operates the nonprofit facility.
Santilli’s lectures covered structure, color, anatomy, brushes, and even geology. She shared techniques for painting veins that seem to pop into view, subtly shift color, then fade away, creating the illusion of depth. She also showed how to create the gentle, cloudy drifts of color that are the hallmark of aged marble. “The better your marbling skills are, the better your finishes will be,” she said.
The students, four women and two men, came from all over western Oregon. They represented a variety of occupations, from residential contractor and part-time faux painter to wallpaper specialist and paint salesman.
The six surrounded Santilli, watching with rapt fascination as she used a fine brush to recreate a vein in a piece of Sienna marble, then smoothed the line out with a badger-hair softener brush. “This feels so yummy,” she told the class.
After she demonstrated the technique, the students retreated to their own canvases and make their own attempts. While no two tries looked alike, Santilli said that every student was at least blessed with a good eye. “This” — she slapped the back of her hand lightly — “doesn’t always obey. But everybody in this class sees what they’re supposed to do. If you see it, the hand will follow.”
The institute’s first students seemed to enjoy the experience.
April Olson of Springfield, Ore., who attended with her
husband, Todd, said the training would help them expand
their residential painting outfit. “Some persons
in town say there’s no market for decorative painting.
They are dead, dead wrong,” she said. “Todd
gets calls all the time for it. We wanted to train and
get good at it before marketing ourselves.”
The pair met Santilli at a PDCA conference last year
and became enthusiastic fans of her work. When they heard
she was coming to teach a class near where they live, they
jumped at the chance. “That woman is truly a master,” April
said. “This is her passion. She lives, eats and breathes
Sienna marble.”
Cynthia Jones of Eugene, Ore., also gave the instructor
high marks. “She’s willing to share what she
has learned over 20 years,” she said. “She’s
easy to talk to; she answers questions.”
Jones also liked the group element of the class. “It’s
good to be in a group, because everybody has questions
and can answer questions.
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had,” she
said of the class. “I’m having a blast.”
Santilli
said her marbling classes combine old methods with the
choicest new technology. Her techniques are shaped according
to European traditions that are centuries old. Marbled
walls have been discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, she
notes.
The end result serves as art, decoration and preservation. “Some
of these patterns are all quarried out,” she said. “You
can’t find them anymore.”
Santilli acknowledged that the course required trainees
to absorb a lot in a short time. “They get a lot
in three days,” she said. “There’s so
many things to think about.”
But the way she sees it, education is essential. In Europe,
she said, painters apprentice for seven years, learning
the basics, then marbling, wood-graining and other specialties,
before they ever call themselves full-fledged professionals. “The
more skilled we are, the more opportunity we have to work
in different areas.”
For more information on Michelle Santilli and the North American School of Decorative Art, call (630) 833-5050 or visit NASODA online. For more information, call (877) 935-8906 or visit the Institute for American Craftsmanship Web site.

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