Fooled Ya!

Do you wait all year for April Fools’ Day to play annoying pranks and jokes on your friends and family? What if you could fool them year round? Well, with a few deft sweeps of a paintbrush in the hand of a talented artist, you can trick the eye of visitors to your home in the tradition of ‘trompe l’oeil’. 

Literally, trompe l’oeil means ‘trick the eye’ and it is an art form that uses exquisitely realistic images to create optical illusions. Typically, the intent is to create a convincing—though unexpected—three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional surface.

Trompe l’oeil has been employed by artists since the Romans and Greeks were decorating, but it became significantly more sophisticated as painters developed a deeper understanding of perspective.  Well before the advent of chiropractors, artists craned their necks for months on end to create the impression of openings to the heavens and skies in the vaulted ceilings of churches and palaces using only paint.

Trompe l’oeil has also been used for centuries in the creation of theatrical sets where long corridors, winding lanes and other elements are required to provide physical depth and context to a scene.

Reo's, Nelson BC
Photo: Kate Bridger

In contemporary cities, trompe l’oeil is often employed by sophisticated graffiti and commissioned street artists to paint spectacular murals on the outsides of otherwise unremarkable architecture. We even have an example right here in Nelson, BC … take a look at the ‘un’real windows, doors and cornices painted on the sides of the Reo’s.

Inside contemporary homes, however, the use of optical illusions is quite rare because, done properly, it is labour intensive and there are few artists able to pull it off and few homeowners able to afford it. Of course, there are commercially available wallpapers you can purchase if you really want to ‘install’ a window with a view of the Hampton Court Gardens in your dungeon-like basement, and you can still buy the ‘forest scenes’ and ‘beaches’ that were popular in offices and rec rooms during the 1970s. If you really want to be clever about it, there are paint application techniques you can learn that mimic rough stone, or peeling plaster so you can add a rustic feature without the rustic mess.

Anyone with an e-mail account has probably seen some of the viral e-mails depicting extraordinary painted illusions such as bathrooms with floors that appear to have completely dropped out to reveal the ground several storeys below; or a staff smoking room painted to look like the inside of a grave, complete with the sky up above and mourners peering down.

But, perhaps you’d prefer to start with something a little less challenging. How about a porthole in the bathroom looking out to sea, or a ‘fake’ shelf of cartoon characters in a child’s room? Perhaps you’d like an ionic column on either side of your front door … or maybe just a pretend hook with a pretend umbrella hanging from it.

Get the shadows and the wrinkles and the light in all the right places and perhaps you’ll fool your friends all year round without having to put plastic wrap on the toilet seat … although, you could probably paint that too!

 

www.katebridger.ca

 

 

 

 

White Washed

I woke up last Saturday morning, the sun was shining and Nelson had been treated to a fresh coat of pure white snow. It was clean and sparkly and unspoiled. It's what we all strive towards as we brush our teeth and bleach our linens. White is also a go-to shade for many homeowners, contractors and decorators. It provides a clean slate and is so obviously a non-colour, it is unlikely to offend.

The utilitarian aspects of white can be classified as follows: convenience, cleanliness and consistency.

White is a convenient choice because it requires very little thought. Everything will 'go' with it so it is an easy default colour. However, not all whites are created equal. If you look at a collection of paint store chips you will soon see that 'Wedding White' can look quite dingy beside 'Snow White' and 'Antique White' looks almost yellow beside 'Pearl Morning'.

White is also recognized as a measure of cleanliness—particularly appealing if you live in a laboratory. White is associated with purity, innocence and perfection. Because of this, it must be well maintained. A white sofa with even the slightest stain will appear to have fallen from grace and white walls conspire to draw your eye to every scuff, dent or mark. 

As a default option, white offers consistency within a room or throughout a building even if it is only applied to the trim, woodwork and ceilings. It's so much easier to have one can of paint for all these details particularly where rooms flow from one to another—there are no difficult decisions to be made when a corner or a doorway crops up.

The world is so full of colour that white is rarely my first choice. To me, a white wall looks unfinished and screams for saturated colour and I find white furnishings and accessories very unsettling. But of course there are people who find white calming and restorative.

An all-white room can also provides an opportunity for a little drama; for example, if you want to single out a favourite colour, then a splash of that in the midst of a sea of white is very striking. However, the problem with such contrived spaces—if they are intended for living in—is that they require extra diligence and preclude certain behaviours. There is no place for black dogs, sticky children, newsprint, well-worn tatty blankets or mis-matched cookware.

Like everything—and everyone—you invite into your home, don't settle for what seems convenient and easy. Go after your passion and if it turns out to be all things white, pursue it consciously and deliberately. And remember, if you must put your feet up on the coffee table, wear white socks!

PHOTO CREDIT: Meagan Tintari, '…love Meagan photostream'

www.katebridger.ca