Inspiration

Here are 12 patterns in my home, they all play off each other in a fun way.

: Stencil1 chain pillow

: Iron coffee table

: Saw marked shelves

: Larry on floorcloth

: Stencil1 chevron pillow

: kitchen floor

: kuba cloth pillow

: Stencil1 moroccan petal wall

: Book of Fairy Tales

: Stencil1 Hexagon Pillow

: Vintage tile – Bathroom Floor

: Top of old wood trunk

For the January 2014 CHA show in Anaheim, California I debuted my new Stencil line with Plaid. It was a fantastic show and it’s always fun and inspiring to walk the show and see all the innovative, new products coming out for the art industry. I was very pleased to meet the guys at the Ironlak booth, a classic spray paint brand out of Australia. They introduced me to their new line – SUGAR. The name alone got me. The packaging is on point as well – Bold, direct, and spells out all the selling points of this great new spray paint. LOWEST VOC’s in a spray paint. That means happy lungs! The formula is a harvested sugarcane alcohol based acrylic, not petroleum. So as a stencil artist I love it because it dries super fast. I visited the booth each day, watching their artists demo the product (yes indoors) and then arranged to get my hands on some cans for video how-to’s posting to Ulive.com.

Here is a sneak peak at our vintage plate makeover using Stencil1 stencils and Sugar spray paint. Rat stencil soon to be released. The paint sprays clean and evenly, like a perfect mist and I did the project in my studio (with the window opened). Amazing results.

We are the first to debut this paint and I can’t thank Ironlak enough for the opportunity. SUGAR is yet to be released in the USA as of this post but as soon as it does, get your hands on it, it’s quality!

STAY TUNED for the full video!

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With the release of my book Stencil Décor 101 in 2009, I had the privilege of working with Benjamin Moore. Since then, I have used their paints for many of my installation jobs including the Ace Hotel and of course, at the Benjamin Moore headquarters.

In addition to naming a color of the year, Breathe of Fresh Air, The Benjamin Moore Color Trends for 2014 palette includes 23 carefully selected Benjamin Moore paint hues that harmonize with one another to create that perfect envelope for any interior design style. These are the 23 colors:

To highlight these highly usable and invigorating colors, we created a fun installation at the Benjamin Moore HQ under the direction of CMO David Melançon and Creative Director Ellen O’neill. Upon entry, you are greeted by a mural of dripping WET PAINT signs, each painted in one of the 2014 colors. I loved doing this and was happy that Benjamin Moore, despite being a historic company, have a youthful vision. As you continue down the hall, we painted large color swatches on the wall in the same colors. They not only help showcase the new colors, but they also function as modern art within the white (Dove White, to be exact) halls.

As a paint company, it seemed only right that we also hand stenciled multi layer Benjamin Moore logos in the main meeting room. The Benjamin Moore team also requested we stencil a 6 foot ampersand on the wall to go along with their branding of the parent company being Benjamin Moore & Co.

You can read more about the colors and creative director, Ellen O’Neill, here.

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Let me get to the point with this post, my Camp experience was life-changing. Business growth, spiritual growth, fun. Can’t say enough good about it!

So, I was asked to do a stencil workshop and discuss my brand at the Unique Camp, a project created by Unique LA founder Sonja Rasula. Camp is basically a 4-day getaway in this case to Big Bear Mountain, 2 hours outside of LA. The conference helps entrepreneurs focus on their business goals with classes and workshops ranging from how to raise venture capital to well, how to stencil! Yes, the balance of business, art, physical challenges, dancing, and drinks at night all worked well together!

Sonja’s welcome chat included a reading from Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s book CAMP and sort of set the tone for the entire experience. I took the reading to mean ‘Yea. you will be slightly uncomfortable and challenged and out of your element here but this is where growth occurs and some great bonding as well.’ It, for me, was rather spiritual to grow myself as well as my business. As a rather quiet gent, I set my intention to come out of my shell, listen to people and have fun – I think I met all 110 people! Oh, and BTW, we were UNPLUGGED. ESSENTIAL!

AS for the stencil workshop, I chose a place under 5 large pines. We had a variety of supplies and I showed how to stencil paper, t-shirts, bags, and more. One lucky winner received a bunch of Plaid supplies, she was the star student for stenciling her Everlane bag with my arrow stencil. Amazing job. I spoke about starting Stencil1 from a dream to a full-time business while we got creative. So many people were there to start their own business, I hope I inspired their ideas. I too was inspired by many of the workshops including Sonja’s which was about getting press and Whitney Chamberlain who owns a few businesses including Smile Booth and how his biz goals basically came out of his own needs in life. I also kept observing the fine details that the Camp crew put into their branding, from table cloths to archery targets. Branding details matter.

I have a bunch of photos from the time away, I hope you enjoy them. Camp also put these up here. I can’t recommend enough to go to CAMP!