Hand Painted and Stenciled Ceiling

by Joel Cook, artist, owner of Twin Palms Studio in Orlando,Fl

This painted ceiling is based on a palace ceiling in Cordoba, Spain. I gilded the entire ceiling in gold-leaf, laid out the overall 'fan' pattern and then began making stencils for each section using 'poster board'. After hand painting all of the 'blue' pattern areas, the entire piece was lightly antiqued with a brown glaze; with additional glaze in certain areas to create the illusion of depth and shadow. The project took eight days to complete.