Blog - Page 2 of 10 - Leichsenring Studios

Two sides of texture

by Sharon Leichsenring· December 01, 2018· in Artisan Finish, Budget Conscious, Commercial Space, Furniture, Textured Finishes, Trompe L'oeil·

Wall finishes have come such a long way since DIY sponge kits. Let’s take a look at two approaches to using texture. Recently, Bella’s Café in New Haven underwent major renovations when the original café was expanded by taking over the newly available space next door. Dramatic warm colors were chosen for the multi-layered plaster finish on the walls. The color started with depth , a mesmerizing merlot, followed by a rich carmine, and finished with a cinnamon hue. The plaster is infused with mica powder. The layers alternate from smooth troweling to lacelike texture. Here’s the wall to check out. The banquettes were covered in a deep oxblood color, which prompted the trim color I chose. The excitement came when I spotted these shutters on a fun hunting trip with Rose, the owner. I was tasked with matching the worn colors on new wood needed to hang the shutters. I took a cue from the shutter colors and instead of flat black on the ceiling, it’s a dark gray with a definite deep blue green cast. Take a breather from these highly charged color choices, and see the ship lapped wall opposite the banquettes has a textured salt […]
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A Little Goes A Long Way!

by Sharon Leichsenring· November 01, 2018· in Artisan Finish, Artwork, Brick White Wash, Budget Conscious, Ceiling, Childrens, Fireplace, Headboards, Scrollwork, Trompe L'oeil·

One of the biggest misconceptions that people make about decorative painting is that it’s only something for mansions. That artists like myself are only interested in big, lengthy (read expensive) projects in high end properties. I’d like to use this newsletter to illustrate just how wrong that notion is. Many of these are smaller scaled design solutions that took only a day or two to complete. This first example is a simple, glazed finish for this kitchen in Darien, Connecticut. I didn’t want to compete with the gorgeous jaw-dropping countertops, so the glaze served as a perfect transition from the intricate patterning found in the stone. The grey has just a hint of plum that matches the same overtone in the cabinetry. Next, the windows flanking the fireplace in scenic Seymour, CT framed a view too pretty to block with window treatments. Instead, I used the lovely flowered branches and bird motifs found in the sofa fabric to marry the walls to the rest of the room. And when it comes to window treatments, simple panels soar to the next level with the addition of a painted border. Both of these designs were driven from the fabric patterns. The focal […]
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My head’s up in the clouds!

by Sharon Leichsenring· September 30, 2018· in Ceiling, Clouds, Trompe L'oeil, Video·

I was hooked the first minute I walked into the foyer of the beautifully renovated home in Trumbull, CT in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I mean I could taste how much fun this was going to be to paint. Here’s what met my eyes. My client was quick to assure me of my safety and was indeed a man of his word. A temporary platform (or as we in the trade are fond of calling it, a dance floor) was going to make this project as easy as painting for days with your arms over your head can be. After our initial discussion of what the clouds would look like, we started moving from the more stylized clouds of the Gilded Age to keeping the coloring more realistic to New England cloudscapes. Well worth the little side trip I needed to make to Newport to see Rosecliff in person again, and I picked up an inspiration there. I painted scaled canvases, a half a dozen, so that we could get the configuration and coloring exactly where it needed to be. Here is the final canvas that was my map. My client is keeping that as part of the foyer’s storyboard, […]
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Tying up loose ends

by Sharon Leichsenring· August 31, 2018· in Artisan Finish, Artwork, Dogs, Furniture, Textured Finishes, Trees·

Some months, my newsletters seem to write themselves. It’s a project that has its start to finish completely falling within the calendar days of that month. I write my story, share my pictures and out it goes to you. Easy Peasy. And then there are those projects that have a life of their own, the last piece taking its time to fall into place. I made promises to share the end shots with you, so enjoy. My April 2018 newsletter (you can read it at https://www.leichsenringstudios.com/fit-for-a-queen-a-royal-powder-room-indeed/) was about one of my favorite powder rooms is in Stamford, CT and was completely muraled ,including the ceiling. My client asked if I knew someone who could take care of the final detail that needed to be dealt with: changing the existing casement window into one made of stained glass. Yes, I did know someone whose work would be a perfect match to my own. Enter Michael Skrtic. An extraordinary stained glass designer and maker. You can check out his work at www.theglasssource.com. I drew the scene in the window area that would have been painted had there been no window. I also saved my palette so Michael could see […]
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Hanging ’round the farm for inspiration

by Sharon Leichsenring· August 03, 2018· in Artwork, Dogs, Horses, Kitchen, Murals, Powder Room, Staircase·

It’s supposed to be the lazy days of summer, but time is flying here at my studio. I’ve got a darling little project that needs to be finished but this newsletter is not going to write itself waiting for me to finish it. So this month we’ll start with some progress shots. For sure I’ll be finished by next month. After visiting with my client, the initial direction to use her beautiful flowering gardens as inspiration. Then it changed as she thought the flowers and landscape could be minimal and a variety of farm animals take center stage. Here are the original sketches. I’m more than halfway done. Here’s one of the front panels and one side panel completed. I’ve been juggling deadlines to finish this, and you know I will. The farm theme also showed up in a painting I completed for Bella’s Café I (home of the best upscale comfort food in Connecticut) in New Haven. He’ll be hung as soon as Bellas’s reopens when the renovations are complete .Here’s the Rocking Rooster canvas I painted. Along with my dry sink, I’ll have more pictures of Bella’s next month. In keeping with completed […]
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A Circle Comes Round

by Sharon Leichsenring· July 03, 2018· in Clouds, Lettering, Murals, Signs·

I got a call recently, a blast from the past. It was a client from 2000, back when I was still known to many as Sharon the Signpainter, owner of Sign It Sharon. The decorative artist I have become was still in her foundling stages. Back to the call. It was the owner of the “Sea Angel”, a sailboat whose name I had lettered. The work had a back story. I loved the design and the banner covered a ghost image from the name of a previous owner, which takes years to fade. It seemed that recent communications had gone awry and what was supposed to be a simple touch up to refresh the color and turned into a disaster when the banner was repainted a deep green. With the red hull, the transom screamed Christmas. With me being gone from the business, did I know anyone who could help. And I did. Know someone. The perfect person who could solve her problem. Me, the original artist. Was it perhaps time for me to end my self-imposed exile from the world of signpainting for at least this one boat? During boat lettering season, my world was at the mercy of […]
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Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

by Sharon Leichsenring· June 01, 2018· in Floral, Murals, Trompe L'oeil, Video·

If it’s true that good fences make good neighbors, then this recent project will be making the whole neighborhood happy. I was contacted by Jan who began as a student and client years ago and has become a dear friend. I met Jan over a decade ago at the school of Anything but Plain Decorative Finishes in Houston where I taught workshops in mural painting, trompe l’oeil and perspective drawing amongst many other classes. Jan took a class and at the end took me up on the request I make of students: stay in touch, send me pictures. She did exactly that and then one day asked me to come to her newly built home in Grapeland, Texas to paint a mural. It would be the first of many murals I would come to paint there. A treat every single time as I fell under the charms of the peacefulness of East Texas. Here’s a picture of Jan and me at the Blue Bell Creameries, home of arguably the best ice cream in the country. This project brought many aspects of my Texas connections together. Amongst my visitors while working was Janie Ellis, founder of Anything But Plain, […]
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Strictly by the book… not in my studio!

by Sharon Leichsenring· May 03, 2018· in Artwork, Birds, Furniture, Murals, Ocean, Trees·

I’m going to have to start being a little more careful with my words. I simply can’t start every newsletter by saying this project surely is one of my favorites. But is it true, each and every time, and the bookshelves in this project have been on my bucket list of things to paint for a long time, and I loved it even more than I thought I would. My client gets all the credit for the concept. The four plain panels on this built-in cabinet were calling for something, but what ? She saw bookshelves in her mind’s eye, so that’s where we started. The sketching of one panel with five shelves, meaning a total of twenty shelves total, seemed a bit much. So I suggested letting the upper portion of each panel acting as a window showing some of the beautiful vistas of her properties and we were on track. Included amongst the books were some meaningful possessions and a beloved pet. Once I had drawn the four panels to scale, I added them to the photo of the actual cabinets to see it clearly. Here’s what that looked like. Canvas cut and ready to […]
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Fit for a Queen, a Royal Powder Room Indeed!

by Sharon Leichsenring· April 04, 2018· in Dogs, Floral, Murals, Powder Room, Scrollwork, Trees, Video·

Sometimes, I simply need to pinch myself. A project is presented and I know how fortunate I am as an artist that the path has brought it to me. And what a challenge this would be. A small powder room, 58″ wide, 84″ long and 7 ½’ in height. Fill this space with images of one my client’s favorite places, the Gardens of Versailles. Challenge accepted. Here’s the white walls that I first saw. I drew scaled drawings suggesting different vistas, knowing I would have to seam them together. I started on the wall with the sink and toilet because it also had the one small window in the space. A stained glass window is being created to continue my vision and so as to keep the stained glass artist on schedule, this was the best place to start. I saved my palettes from the that area so that not only would he have the acrylic colors I was using but he could see the blending that took place for the best color accuracy. When it’s installed, I’ll share pictures. A few tricky areas getting behind the mirror and the sides of the toilet, but my world was […]
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This one is for the birds!

by Sharon Leichsenring· March 01, 2018· in Birds, Murals·

A few years back, I joked with my husband that he was officially old. Watching his colony of bluebirds thrive had risen on his priority list. Getting up early to feed them steroid munching sized worms. Only old people had time for the birds. I humbly stand corrected. I’ve been old, by that standard, for a really long time. Recently, I came across a picture of a heron I’d painted in a mural years ago. I’d misfiled it, and I was so excited finding it, I posted it immediately on Instagram, not even noticing I’d done so, cutting off most of his head. Here he is, in all his glory. I started thinking that I have painted quite a few birds over the years, because I think they are glorious subjects to include in a mural. So without further ado, here are some of my absolute favorites, and a few visits going back to one of my very first murals. This was a blue glazed ceiling, simulating sky. More mood than anything else, the birds were my favorite part. Another early mural is painted on the stockroom door at TileAmerica in New Haven. This was my early entry into trompe […]
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