Where can I find that green...


I want this green so bad and I will never find it in a paint can. I can't always take the easy way out which is what I want to do. This takes mixing and layering and and aging and probably failing and starting again. Unless you can start with wet plaster and pure pigments and master craftsmen. I am so in love with these two rooms. They are drowning in color, age, imperfection, soul, sadness, joy, and grace. The one above abandoned and the one below a home. I would take either one in a heartbeat.


Pictures from Havana by Robert Polidori. "The Montreal-born photographer has made haunting studies of bombed-out buildings in Beirut, decaying New York tenements, Versailles rooms in dusty disarray, Brasilia's paean to spare '50s modernism, and, most recently, the abandoned, contaminated cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat. Taken together, they add to his ongoing project: the interpretation of the interrupted urban landscape."

12 comments:

  1. Marcus DesignMonday, April 04, 2011

    A simply stunning green! I can see why you want it so bad. Lovely inspiration Cat!!
    Nancy xo

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  2. Niece KateMonday, April 04, 2011

    Can we please send him to Detroit?!!

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  3. SandraMonday, April 04, 2011

    It would be great if you could put a link to the photographer in the post... interesting work.

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  4. CatMonday, April 04, 2011

    Hello Sandra, I agree and I usually do that but last night I was too tired and readers can always google the name. He is famous. And his books are all on amazon, FYI. Me bad..
    Cat

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  5. paintycaitMonday, April 04, 2011

    The bottom one you could get with a mix of Oxide of Chromium and Black...top one....hmmmmmm Viridian I would have said. You could definitely achieve these in glazes over carefuly prepped bases, or get the look with Chalk Paint. We have mixed our own distempers and traditional chalk paints for walls to get this look but for an out of the can "get the look" I think Annie Sloan chalk paints would do the job...I am a big fan. You could chip it back and sand it through to get that aged worn look. Could be very lush....I'm athinking I better get trying!

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  6. CatMonday, April 04, 2011

    Cait: your blog and web site are lovely and I am soooo excited to have a visitor from Scotland no less a real painter. PLEASE let me know if you achieve this. I love this color and I am going to look at Annie sloan right now. I do not recall "chalk paint". How would you mix this color?
    Cat

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  7. court.Wednesday, April 06, 2011

    i love this. reminds me of the sets in THe King's Speech.

    They did such a lovely job getting the saturation down on these images and in the movie. I love walls in decay.

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  8. paintycaitThursday, April 07, 2011

    Hi Cat,
    How sweet you are. Loving your blog for a while, love the variety.
    Annie Sloan Chalk paint has just arrived in USA, it is a traditional european paint that has the advantage of sticking to anything - even over wax. It is soft so you can sand it back, isolate layers easily with wax or varnish and do lots of fun things. It's mainly for furniture but for this sort of chalky faded glory walls is perfect
    Colours I would use..probably Antibes, Graphite and Provence which looks bluer on-line than it does in real life, where it is a pretty french bluey green.

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  9. CatThursday, April 07, 2011

    Thank you Cait! What is it about this paint that even makes it stick to wax! and oil based paint also? Is it really possible to not sand and prime ANY surface? SIGN ME UP if true. It reminds me of distemper. NOW can it be mixed with other types of latex paint? Probably not b/c it would lose its properties. It seems you really have to order the cream also to get proper values. I assume I cld use universal tints to knock back the intensity? Thanks!
    Cat

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  10. paintycaitThursday, April 07, 2011

    I've been using it and selling it and teaching it for ages and it is wonderful...I genuinely didn't believe it would stick when I was first told; tested it on everything I could find...it works. You need to seal it with wax or varnish. It won't mix with latex, you could use UTC's I suppose, I've yet to find a colour I needed to use them for. You have a couple of stockists is California, check it out.
    It is chalky like distemper but ...different. It is less translucent, more intense in colour on application and obviously doesn't have the disadvantages of distemper

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  11. CatThursday, April 07, 2011

    wonderful and thanks! Yes, I have located the CA stockist and ordered! Cannot wait. I have a "beast" to use it on.
    Cat

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  12. paintycaitFriday, April 08, 2011

    OOOH what?? or is it a pending blog post?

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