Paint Decor Studio

Paint Decor Studio is the home of Denver mural artist Michelle Frances and, on occasion, a few of her awesomely talented friends. Michelle's art includes murals, decorative paint effects, faux finishes and decorative plasters in addition to portraits, pet portraits and custom fine art pieces. Please take a few minutes to browse this site and don't miss the archive (as there are more photos there than anywhere else). If you are using Explorer and having trouble viewing pictures go to the archive and you should be able to see images there. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-31086169-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

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Starry Night (the Denver version) mural. I painted this for a Denver family. The sky (up to the ceiling) is a fairly close to Van Gogh’s original. I faded the brushwork out onto the ceiling and added a few more stars. The mountains, Denver skyline, City Park Boat house and the grass are all as seen from Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science. 99% of this mural was painted using two of my favorite brushes (that I can’t usually use for murals) #6 and #8 filbert. Van Gogh wasn’t really into straight lines and I had a great time trying to emulate that. I hope I was able to capture even a small touch of what Van Gogh did in his masterpiece.

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This video is of my most recent mural in Denver. We used a skyline image from Disney’s Ratatouille for the composition but changed the style and color scene drastically. This mural is painted in a four year old girl’s room but I imagine it will be something she loves well into her teens. 

Mom wanted to include the Mona Lisa as her daughter is fascinated by the painting so… I put her in the window. Apparently they LOVE it.

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Paint Decor Paris Mural

This video is of my most recent mural in Denver. We used a skyline image from Disney's Ratatouille for the composition but changed the style and color scene drastically. This mural is painted in a four year old girl's room but I imagine it will be something she loves well into her teens. 

Mom wanted to include the Mona Lisa as her daughter is fascinated by the painting so... I put her in the window. Apparently they LOVE it.

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Texas landscape mural in small powder room.

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Just completed this Tuscany mural in a Littleton home. New furniture is on the way... including a wine barrel side table. These folks love their wine!

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Finishing this mural up in the next day or two. I'm having fun with it.

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Murals in a Denver area dining room. 

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The Diffences between Murals, Decorative Painting, Trompe l'Oeil and Faux Painting

Here are a few basic definitions that might help clarify things.

Murals: Fine art paintings executed directly onto a wall. These are primarily representational; landscapes, portraits, abstract. Murals are generally one large composition and do not involve repeating patters.

Decorative Painting: Decorative Painting generally refers to detailed paint work that is not suggestive of anything. It is simply decorative. Wallpaper like repeating patters, scroll work, stripes, damask patterns. Often, stencil work can fall into this category.

Trompe l'Oeil: This term literally means 'fool the eye'. Trompe l'oeil murals are so realistic they are intended to trick the viewer into thinking that the wall isn't there. 

Faux Painting: Faux means 'fake' so this refers to painting techniques intended to make the drywall look like something else; aged plaster, stucco, leather, bark, etc. Sponging, washing, and glazing are popular techniques.

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I just finished this mural for a boy's nursery in Denver, CO's Wash Park neighborhood. This train mural includes a few vintage airplanes. One of the buildings in the distance is an old family home in Detroit.

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I discovered the illustrations of Michael Sowa last year at this time. I was asked to look at them as inspiration for a mural I was designing for a Denver home. I hope there is a new calendar every year! I absolutely love the soft mysterious quality of his paintings. Realistic looking animals in realistic spaces doing fantastical things… it’s like he has found a way to paint my dreams.

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Just say No to Smarmy Paint.

Can paint be smarmy? Since smarmy is an adjective meaning falsely earnest I guess the word has to apply to a noun with the ability to be earnest and/or false. So, maybe not. However, who creates the ads, who tests the paint and then lies to consumers? Those people are smarmy! I won't say that the people behind the paint counter at my local big box hardware store are smarmy. They are only doing their jobs to the best of their abilities (most of the time). They don't really know paint so they don't really know that they are selling junk.

It is simple really. If you hire an experienced, professional painter they will use Benjamin Moore Paint. Some might use Sherwin Williams but none will use big box brands. Why not? It is cheaper right? The truth is it is actually more expensive because you have to use twice as much paint and it takes twice as long to cover a wall. Therefore a $25 a gallon paint is not cheaper than a $40 a gallon paint. 

The best painters I know use Benjamin Moore exclusively because it looks great and costs less in the long run. It is just good business to create beautiful walls as efficiently as possible.

There is enough paint on this planet (thank you Sherwin Williams for the lovely graphic). Use the good stuff the first time.

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Proud mom moment. In an earlier post I wrote about how expressive 4 y/o Charlie’s art is. This is Charlie, giant head, spazzy body, goofy eyebrows and all. I swear he’s even raising one eyebrow in self defiance. I love this kid!

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Quick snapshot of a dining room I just finished.

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The Dragon Room. These crazy Chinese dragons are painted on the ceiling of a boy's room in Denver. The walls are beige with a few clumps of bamboo painted on them. 

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Dining room starting to take shape.

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Another boy's room by Paint Decor Studio incorporating a faux finish, a custom chair rail and murals. In this Ferrari room the lower walls are an attempt to mimic 'Ferrari Red' car paint. I happen to live within a mile of Denver's Ferrari dealership so I actually went over and compared Benjamin Moore reds to the cars (fun!). I had a friend of mine spray on the paint as well as three coats of polyurethane to give the walls a super high gloss. The thin wooden chair rail is painted to look like chrome. The car murals are meant to look like designer sketches of the different Ferrari models and are painted over a clean white matte finish base-coat.

Dad's original vision was of a race track with stands and hundreds of tiny people... I'm glad we went with this. I think the kid will like it for much longer (he is only three but I can see him loving this room well into his teens). 

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Boy's room dilemmas? - never fear, Michelle is here. This lacrosse mural has to be one of my favorite rooms I've ever painted. Mom knew she wanted some sort of retro looking lacrosse art reproduced above the bed but, beyond that, I was free to play. This room is big and I imagined that a simple image above the bed wouldn't be 'enough'. The room was asking for more. We played with an poster image we found, changed the colors (to match the bedding) and added a player to make the design a bit more horizontal. The lower walls are painted green, given a faux treatment to mimic grass and then I painted on 'turf' lines. The result is a collage of segments of lacrosse fields. The final touch with the paint is a bit of tone on tone white detail here and there on the upper walls. But the creme de la creme is chair rail made out of actual lacrosse sticks mounted to stained molding.