THE ART CASTLE Is a fine art company that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary with faux finishes, paint finishes, sponge paint, custom murals, ceiling murals and decorative painting. Whether you want to have a Tuscan look or a landscape mural in your kitchen, faux wood graining in the den, trompe loeil scenic murals, or even nursery murals or jungle murals for your kid’s bedroom. No faux finishing project is too large or too small for us. The Art Castle has been bringing faux finishes, venetian plaster and murals into clients’ homes in LA for ten years.
The Art Castle’s mission is to create for every homeowner or businessman’s place a look that is uniquely his own and would stand out. Ricky Alvarez does this through the use of color, decorative painting, faux painting finishes, stenciling, and murals. The Art Castle offers its finest painting and mural services in Los Angeles.
Ricky Alvarez, an artist and muralist experienced in color,interior design, and murals, will help you uncover your home’s potential and guide you through the process. The solution, which may be complex or simple, will then be implemented to your specifications. The Art Castle produces original, one-of-a-kind murals through painting techniques which set you apart from your friends and neighbors. Murals add uniqueness to your personality, home or business. Murals can transform a room. For a successful decorative painting experience, which adds depth and richness to ordinary walls, you need the educated eye of Ricky Alvarez for color selection and flawless execution of the chosen technique.
Ricky also offers color consultation services to achieve the best look for your place. Design issues can be minimized with proper application of decorative painting. Faux finishes are successfully executed when you have an artist creating the illusion of the unavailable material. Faux finishes, decorative painting, or murals go almost anywhere – including floors, ceilings, furniture and kitchen cabinets. The Art Castle’s design skill will help you determine the most beneficial placement and use. Color options are enhanced with faux finishes and murals, and unlike wallpaper, there are no seams and no stripping when you need a change – just paint over it! You will be treated with professionalism, courtesy, and respect in the entire process of your interior color design. There is no charge for meeting with Ricky, looking through his portfolio, and discussing your options.
Decorative Pinting & Mural description Styles:
Kids Murals:
 
We design Kids Murals ,that you ask for. We take inspiration from all the input we get from our customers, what your children ask for "Mommy, I want a jungle in my room." you call us and we get busy designing. We feel blessed to help you give your children a fun comforting space to live, play, grow and especially imagine in. Take inspiration from our Children's wall mural Gallery. we make kids room painting easy for you. We help you as a parents to design either one wall or the whole room. Let us know what wall mural design you would love for us to create! We would love to hear from you, so send us your ideas and email us all those room photos of your childs room.
Wall Murals:
 
A mural can promote a chosen mood, inducing relaxation or, through a surrealistic scheme or distorted perspective, create an electric atmosphere. Murals can inform, or create an illusion, transporting the spirit wherever it cares to travel - from a tropical island to a garden landscape - giving expression to our dreams and fantasies, Old world murals are more traditional and classic.
Trope Loeil:
Definition:
French for "fool the eye," trompe l'oeil is decorative painting that creates the illusion of reality.
Trompe L'Oeil Murals enhance the illusion of depth and erase transition between real and painted worlds. As a stand along element, Trompe L'Oeil alters the appearance of architectural features and real objects adding depth, relief, ornamentation to otherwise flat surfaces. Most popular areas of architectural and ornamental Trompe L'Oeil are beams, niches, medallions, friezes, ceilings, Window, doors opening, wall perimeters and such.
Trompe l'oeil paintings may also include clouds, trees, angels, or scenes from nature. The skillful use of perspective adds to the realistic appearance of trompe l'oeil paintings.
Ornamental Trompe L'Oeil:
Inspired by early Italian Renaissance borders, ornamental trompe l'oeil ceilings are details that can increase the luxury and elegance of your home and place.
Ceiling Murals:
Sky Murals:
   
Sky Murals are authentic illusions of skies that transform confined interiors into spaces of natural beauty and freshness.
Transform confined spaces into more spacious feeling, inviting, and memorable environments.
Engage people with compellingly authentic illusions of nature that trigger genuine psycho-physiological responses of relaxation, comfort, vitality and well-being.
Cosmic & Planet Murals:
    
is a custom painted authentic ceiling mural of the night-time sky. It's an amazing 3-D illusion that twinkles, sparkles and even seems to move when the lights go out.
Stars and planets are painted using ider glow in the dark paint or black ligth paint these makes a realistic efect to create and illution of space.
It's a truly breath-taking experience!
Faux Finishes & sponge paint:
Faux painting or Faux finishing are terms used to describe a wide range of decorative painting techniques. From the French word for "fake", faux painting began as a form of replicating materials such as marble and wood with paint, but has come to encompass many other decorative finishes for walls and furniture.
History:
Faux finishing has been used for millennia, from cave painting to Ancient Egypt, but what we generally think of as faux finishing in decorative arts began with Plaster and Stucco Finishes in Mesopotamia over 5000 years ago.
Examples of faux paintings.
Faux became hugely popular in Classical times in the forms of faux Marble, faux Wood, and Trompe l'oeil Murals. Artists would apprentice for 10 years or more with a master faux painter before working on their own. Great recognition was rewarded to artist who could actually trick viewers into believing their work was the real thing. Faux painting has continued to be popular throughout the ages, but experienced major resurgences in the neoclassical revival of the nineteenth century and the Art Deco styles of the 1920s. Throughout the recent history of decorative painting, faux finishing has been mainly used in commercial and public spaces.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s faux finishing saw another major revival, as wallpaper began to fall out of fashion. At this point, faux painting started to become extremely popular in home environments, with high end homes leading the trends. While it can be quite expensive to hire a professional faux finisher, many faux painting methods are simple enough for a beginning home owner to create with a little instruction. People are also attracted to the simplicity of changing a faux finish, as it can be easily painted over compared with the hassle of removing wallpaper.
In modern day faux finishing, there are two major materials/processes used. Glaze work involves using a translucent mixture of paint and glaze applied with a brush, roller, rag, or sponge, and often mimics textures, but it always smooth to the touch. Plaster work can be done with tinted plasters, or washed over with earth pigments, and is generally applied with a trowel or spatula. The finished result can be either flat to the touch or textured.
- Marbleizing or faux marbling is used to make walls and furniture look like real marble. This can be done using either plaster or glaze techniques.
- Graining, wood graining, or faux bois (French for "fake wood") is often used to imitate exotic or hard-to-find wood varieties.
- Trompe l'oeil, "trick the eye" in French, is a realistic painting technique often used in murals, and to create architectural details.
- Venetian plaster is a smooth and often shiny plaster design that appears textured but is smooth to the touch. Venetian plaster is one of the most popular and traditional plaster decorations.
- Color wash is a free-form finish that creates subtle variations of color using multiple hues of glaze blended together with a paint brush.
- Strie, from the French word meaning "stripe" or "streak", is a glazing technique that creates soft thin streaks of color using a paint brush. It is a technique often used to simulate fabrics such as linen and denim.
- Rag painting or ragging is a glazing technique using twisted or bunched up rags to create a textural pattern.
    
Venetian Plaster:
Venetian Plaster is a Finishing technique using thin layers of plaster applied with a spatula or trowel and then burnished to create a smooth surface with the illusion of depth and texture. "Venetian plaster" is American-made term to explain the variety of different techniques and materials used to create the polished stucco finish. The Term "Venetian Plaster" is common misconception.
The English word "plaster" comes from old French word "plaister" which literally means gypsum. The term "Venetian plaster" is mainly used between architects and designers in the US.
None of the materials used to create those finishes is plaster except the Scagliola finish. Basic Plaster mix is gypsum, sand and lime or just the gypsum and sand. In other words gypsum is the main material in the plaster mix. Stucco is the mix of lime and sand (Traditional) and modern stucco is the mix of lime, cement and sand. So, main material in the modern stucco mix is the cement and traditional mix is the lime or hydraulic lime used in polished stucco.
Techniques: Stucco Veneziano (Venetian stucco), Marmorino, Scagliola, Sgraffitto, Marezzo (American scagliola), Spatolato, Tadelakt, Kurra etc.
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