Floral Still Life Oil Painting - Antiquing a New Painting

A request came in from a delightful gentleman for a painting to be done of a vintage floral still life print of a vase of asters which was published in the early 1900's by Edward Gross co. There was no artist name anywhere to be found on the print and he did not think it was of any great value. But the print meant a lot to him.

His mother had bought the elaborately framed art piece on her honeymoon, and she had left it to him when she passed away. But a family member recently decided it needed cleaning with a damp rag.  Hmm. That did not work out very well as you can see below:

Ouch! Poor print. The entire background was obliterated except at the edges which were concealed by the frame. Most of the color, detail and contrasts in the flowers and vase were washed out as well. This was very distressing because the print had great sentimental value as you can imagine.

My mission was to do a new painting of this piece to restore the colors and detail to its former beauty. A little tricky considering what I was working from.

This was my first attempt:
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Faux Painted Venetian Plaster Walls for my Studio

Busy, busy, busy! It was the season just a few short months ago. I'd been filling orders daily, working on commissions and packing up artwork and note cards to ship off to clients for Christmas, many of them newly-new collectors.

And, of course, I was doing some shopping myself and getting ready for a house full of people for Christmas dinner.

On top of that, there was the URGE that suddenly overwhelmed me to put new drapes up in my studio and re-paint the ceiling and walls. There is no use fighting something like this, it just must be done.

When I checked out at the store the second week of December with two gallons of paint in hand along with assorted wall painting supplies, the clerk looked at me and said, "Are you out of your mind, painting your house at this time of year?"

I must be. Because I was not going to just paint the walls, no. That's too conventional. I had this idea of how nice an artist's studio would look with stucco walls or plaster walls. When I found directions online for faux Venetian plaster walls, I knew this was it. "I'll get it done this weekend," I thought. One... week... later... it was finally finished.

So now I have nice walls to hang my artwork on for photo shoots.

OK, let's see how this is done:
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