CHANGE OF SCENERY; LOOKING FOR A ROOM WITH A VIEW? MURALS FILL THE BILL - AND THE WALL.Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer Sponge-painting? Rag-rolling? Wood-graining? They're so five minutes ago, positively passe pas·sé adj. 1. No longer current or in fashion; out-of-date. 2. Past the prime; faded or aged. [French, past participle of passer, to pass, from Old French; see painting trends. If you've had it with wallpaper and you're ready for a new challenge, try murals. Yes, those b-i-i-i-g pictures. Yes, inside your home. Once an art form reserved for the rich and richer, murals are now more affordable than they've ever been. And more homeowners are going beyond a simple splash of color not of the white race; - commonly meaning, esp. in the United States, of negro blood, pure or mixed. See also: Color , instead covering their walls with scenery or themes. Every room in the house - the nursery, recreation room, dining rooms, living rooms - is fair game. ``Murals aren't anything new,'' said Stephen Stoner ston·er n. 1. One that stones. 2. Slang a. One who is habitually intoxicated by alcohol or drugs. b. One who is a delinquent or failure. of Stephen Stoner Associates in West Hollywood West Hollywood A community of southern California northeast of Beverly Hills. It is mainly residential. Population: 36,600. , a member of the American Society of Interior Designers The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) is the oldest and largest professional association for interior designers. Through education, knowledge sharing, advocacy, community building and outreach, the Society strives to advance the interior design profession and, in the . ``In fact, they're very old. People are just rediscovering them. And discovering that, today, they can be affordable.'' Think the Sistine Chapel Sistine Chapel (sĭs`tēn) [for Sixtus IV], private chapel of the popes in Rome, one of the principal glories of the Vatican. Built (1473) under Pope Sixtus IV, it is famous for its decorations. . Think the Palace at Versailles. Today's homeowners can have the same effect, on a much smaller scale, for a much smaller budget. Today's murals are vivid and not too costly because of the invention, in the 1970s, of acrylic paints, said 80-year-old Ignacio Gonzales of Van Nuys, who's painted murals in homes, restaurants, hotels and other businesses for the past 40 years. ``Before that, if somebody wanted a mural, they brought somebody over from Italy,'' Gonzales said. ``They thought you had to be Italian to paint a mural. That was because the Italians, who had been at it for centuries, knew how to mix paints so they wouldn't fade, so they'd stay beautiful for years. It was their secret. But with acrylics, anybody who bought a set of paints was a muralist all of a sudden.'' For Maureen Celusta of Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. , hiring muralist Linda Hager, also a Simi resident, meant she could add a personal touch to her homes. ``I could do exactly what I wanted instead of being limited by wallpaper,'' Celusta said. The result: The dining room walls in her Simi Valley home are covered with scenes of citrus orchards, complete with crates marked with the fictional ``Celusta'' label. But the real fantasy mural was finished only a couple of weeks ago in the foyer of Celusta's newly purchased beach house in Ventura. Visitors who open the front door and step inside get the sensation of being at the bottom of the ocean. The dark blue walls are filled with realistic-looking rocks and plants, fish, jellyfish jellyfish, common name for the free-swimming stage (see polyp and medusa), of certain invertebrate animals of the phylum Cnidaria (the coelenterates). The body of a jellyfish is shaped like a bell or umbrella, with a clear, jellylike material filling most of the , a giant sting ray n. 1. Any one of numerous rays of the family In one home, she added a fanciful garden scene to the sweeping wall behind a curved staircase. In another, she added a touch of old Tuscany to a wine cellar. She's daubed daub v. daubed, daub·ing, daubs v.tr. 1. To cover or smear with a soft adhesive substance such as plaster, grease, or mud. 2. To apply paint to (a surface) with hasty or crude strokes. cartoon figures around babies' rooms, and added fruits and vegetables to kitchens. Colette Stroffolino of Sherman Oaks gets more smiles per mural than most painters: Most of her work goes in children's bedrooms, although she's also painted murals in pediatricians' offices, elementary schools elementary school: see school. and kids' furniture stores. As she put the finishing touches finishing touches finish npl the finishing touches → der letzte Schliff finishing touches npl → ultimi ritocchi mpl on a moon-and-stars mural in a Sherman Oaks home a couple of weeks ago, nearly-2-year-old Parker Converse clapped his hands with delight. ``Moon!'' he exclaimed, pointing. The gold crescent moon crescent moon Mary often depicted standing on or above moon. [Christian Iconog.: Brewer Dictionary, 726] See : Ascension with a smiling face hovered just above his crib, ringed by blue and gold stars. ``He loves the moon - when we go out at night, he points and goes, `Moon, moon!' '' said Parker's mom, Tricia Converse. ``Now, whenever he goes down to sleep, it's going to be like an adventure for him. He'll have his moon.'' Converse said she was a bit hesitant about commissioning a mural for her son's room, believing it would cost too much. But she saw Stroffolino's work in a friend's home and decided to call anyway. ``I didn't realize you could hire somebody to do something small, by the hour,'' she said. ``It's exactly what we needed.'' The muralist said it's sometimes hard for potential clients to visualize what a mural will look like in their home. ``A lot of clients are very unsure,'' Stroffolino said. ``They've never hired this type of service before. They're unsure about the cost. But I work really fast, so it generally doesn't take long. And when they see it done, they say, `Oooh, wow!' And they call me later and say, `I just go sit in that room and wait for the baby to come. I love it.' '' Gonzales, who studied painting in France and Germany after World War II, originally envisioned himself as a master portrait painter. But there was little demand for that kind of work in California, so he turned to painting murals in restaurants and other businesses, including an Indian restaurant in the Glendale Galleria The Glendale Galleria is a large 3 story regional shopping mall located in Glendale, Los Angeles County, California. It is the second largest mall in Los Angeles County. It is located in Downtown Glendale. and the original guest rooms when Caesars Palace Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Harrah's Entertainment. Caesars is located on the west side of the Strip, between the Bellagio and the Mirage. was built in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. . Patrons who saw the work and liked it hired him to decorate their homes in similar fashion. While other muralists paint realistic scenes or copy cartoon characters, Gonzales' favorite works - his best, he says - pay homage to the French impressionists. ``I don't really have a style,'' he said. ``I can't afford it. I do whatever people want.'' His work has included painting historical Hollywood figures around the movie screen in the screening room of one mansion; turning a bedroom wall into a replica of ancient Greece The term ancient Greece refers to the periods of Greek history in Classical Antiquity, lasting ca. 750 BC[1] (the archaic period) to 146 BC (the Roman conquest). It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western Civilization. , complete with ruins and a lake; and making an Iranian family feel at home by painting the walls of their large home with scenes from their native country. Until a few years ago, he also did broad expanses of exterior walls - mythical figures along a wall shading See Phong shading, Gouraud shading, flat shading and programmable shading. a swimming pool, a French cafe scene on a guest house wall facing the main house. In the early days of his career, he'd paint anything, anywhere. When block after block of apartment houses were being built in the Valley after the war, he painted murals in the dining rooms of most apartments. ``I would knock out 40 apartments in a day,'' he said. ``The painting was the easiest part. The hard part was the planning, the sketches. It took no time at all to do the painting.'' Gonzales doesn't work as often as he'd like because, he says, people want to buy art like they buy wallpaper. ``They call up and say, `I've got a wall 15 feet by 8 feet. How much for a mural?' And they're unhappy when I say I can't tell them until I see the wall, the house. So, they call some young kid who will work cheap, like I used to. I can't blame them, though. That's how I got started.'' For the artistically (or fiscally) challenged, a picture of hope Don't have the artistic talent or the money to hire someone to paint your favorite scene? Someone's already thought of you. Step into a home improvement store, or browse a catalog or the Internet, and find ready-made rolls of ``murals'' you can slap on your own walls - just like wallpaper. Many murals are enlarged photographs; others depict painted or sketched subjects. Scenes range from cartoon characters to landscapes, from characters out of children's literature children's literature, writing whose primary audience is children. See also children's book illustration. The Beginnings of Children's Literature The earliest of what came to be regarded as children's literature was first meant for adults. to city skylines, from outer-space scenes to the interior of your favorite baseball stadium. Here are some companies that offer do-it-yourself murals: Environmental Graphics of Jopkins, Minn.; (800) 328-3869; Web site is www.egproducts.com. The firm's murals are also available at most Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box stores; at Dunn-Edwards stores in Pasadena, Glendale, Topanga Canyon and Mission Hills; and at Wallpapers to Go in Studio City. Murals, including new fairy tale fairy tale Simple narrative typically of folk origin dealing with supernatural beings. Fairy tales may be written or told for the amusement of children or may have a more sophisticated narrative containing supernatural or obviously improbable events, scenes, and personages murals in its StoryBook sto·ry·book n. A book containing a collection of stories, usually for children. adj. Occurring in or resembling the style or content of a storybook: storybook characters; a storybook romance. Hollow line, range from $60 to $129. Wallpapers Etc., Decorating Super Store, in Denver, Colo.; (303) 756-9000; www.wallpaperetc.com. Available only by mail order, most murals cost less than $75. Murals of Carlstadt, N.J.; (201) 438-8875; www.decdim.com. Available only by mail, murals sell for $25 to $120. Most murals come in sections or rolls for easy matching. If they're too big, most murals can be trimmed to fit a wall; all can be trimmed to an 8-foot height, the standard residential ceiling height. If the mural is smaller than the wall, it merely can be centered or can be ``framed'' with painted or stained wood trim that can be purchased at a home improvement store. Preprinted murals also can be fitted around a corner for a realistic touch. The wall must be smooth, or sanded smooth, before the murals will adhere to adhere to verb 1. follow, keep, maintain, respect, observe, be true, fulfil, obey, heed, keep to, abide by, be loyal, mind, be constant, be faithful 2. a wall with a special adhesive - sometimes included with the purchase of the mural or available at home improvement stores. The ideal surface is inexpensive flat latex latex, emulsion of a polymer (e.g., rubber) in water (see colloid). Natural latexes are produced by a number of plants, are usually white in color, and often contain, in addition to rubber, various gums, oils, and waxes. (water-based) paint. If the existing paint is gloss or semi-gloss, it can be roughed up slightly with sandpaper sandpaper, abrasive originally made by gluing grains of sand to heavy paper sheets. Today sandpaper is made primarily with quartz, aluminum oxide, or silicon carbide grains, and is graded according to the size of the grains. . Most preprinted murals, which are painted on heavy paper with a top finish added, can be peeled off without damaging the wall underneath. - Carol Bidwell The right muralist at the right price How can you tell which muralist is the right one to decorate your home? Most muralists don't advertise, relying instead on word-of-mouth recommendations. So get the names of artists who have done murals at friends' homes and local businesses and call them. Most will visit your home to discuss their painting styles and your likes and dislikes. If an artist-patron match is made, the cost of the project can be negotiated. Most muralists charge based on the time the work takes - and, yes, they figure in research time and the time it takes to travel to your home. Projects can cost $100 or so for a bit of floral decoration floral decoration Art of arranging living or dried plant material for adornment of the body or home, for public and religious ceremonies, or for festivals. Line, form, colour, texture, balance, porportion, and scale are important aspects of floral arrangement, as is the in a bathroom to several hundred dollars for a mural on a nursery wall to $1,000 or more for a large mural in a living room or dining room. Check your Yellow Pages under ``murals'' for artists. Here's how to reach the muralists we talked to: Ignacio Gonzales, (818) 344-3228; Linda Hager, (805) 527-0079; Colette Stroffolino, (818) 990-3975. CAPTION(S): 6 Photos, 2 Boxes Photo: (1--Cover--Color) On the cover: Muralist Linda Hager designed and painted this undersea mural for a beach house in Ventura. (2--Color) Linda Hager, kneeling, a former oil painting instructor, created this lush undersea-scape for Maureen Celusta's Ventura beach house. Hager also covered the dining room walls of Celusta's Simi Valley home with scenes of citrus orchards, complete with crates marked with the fictional ``Celusta'' label. Evan Yee/Daily News (3--Color) Colette Stroffolino applies paint to some alphabet blocks on the bedroom wall of 22-month-old Parker Converse. (4) A gold crescent moon with a smiling face, ringed by blue and gold stars, hovers just above the crib of an ecstatic Parker. John McCoy/Daily News (5--Color) Ignacio Gonzales, 80, has been painting murals in homes, restaurants, hotels and other businesses for the past 40 years. ``Before that, if somebody wanted a mural, they brought somebody over from Italy,'' he says. Phil McCarten/Daily News (6--Color) In another home, Hager added this fanciful garden scene to the sweeping wall behind a curved staircase. Box: (1) For the artistically (or fiscally) challenged, a picture of hope (See text) (2) The right muralist at the right price (See text) |
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