Paint Decor Studio

Paint Decor Studio is the home of Denver mural artist Michelle Frances and, on occasion, a few of her awesomely talented friends. Michelle's art includes murals, decorative paint effects, faux finishes and decorative plasters in addition to portraits, pet portraits and custom fine art pieces. Please take a few minutes to browse this site and don't miss the archive (as there is more photos there than anywhere else). If you are using Explorer and having trouble viewing pictures go to the archive and you should be able to see images there.

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Permalink The Dragon Room. These crazy Chinese dragons are painted on the ceiling of a boy’s room in Denver. The walls are beige with a few clumps of bamboo painted on them. 
Permalink Another boy’s room by Paint Decor Studio incorporating a faux finish, a custom chair rail and murals. In this Ferrari room the lower walls are an attempt to mimic ‘Ferrari Red’ car paint. I happen to live within a mile of Denver’s Ferrari dealership so I actually went over and compared Benjamin Moore reds to the cars (fun!). I had a friend of mine spray on the paint as well as three coats of polyurethane to give the walls a super high gloss. The thin wooden chair rail is painted to look like chrome. The car murals are meant to look like designer sketches of the different Ferrari models and are painted over a clean white matte finish base-coat. Dad’s original vision was of a race track with stands and hundreds of tiny people… I’m glad we went with this. I think the kid will like it for much longer (he is only three but I can see him loving this room well into his teens). 
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Permalink Mural in a girl’s room that I just finished today. This is actually the second girl’s room I have completed for this Denver family. First the twin girls were in the same room but since they are getting older the family had me come back and do a second room so each girl can have her own space. This tree had to be different than the one in the nursery but similar so it is a tall, thin, blooming version of it’s counterpart in the first room.
Permalink This is an image of a mural I just completed for a boy’s room in Colorado Springs. The mom wanted to image to fade out onto the adjacent walls but to be vibrant. She also wanted to include a biplane and sailboats and be non specific (we are not supposed to be able to define the place - it could be Mexico, the Great Barrier Reef or even Cape Cod). After many e-mails back and forth we found an online image of a painting that was the color scheme and style Mom wanted. From there I merely had to translate it into a mural and add all the additional elements… not easy but I think I made it work.
Permalink This is one of three acrylic on canvas paintings I created for a boy’s room in Denver CO.
Permalink I recently painted this mural for a grand new home in Denver, CO. This is in the hallway outside the grand daughters’ wing of the home. The door at the far end of the hall leads to the bedroom and bath and the door in the tree is to the playroom. This was mural was inspired by the work of Michael Sowa. The overall feel of the mural and especially the giraffe in the boat are direct references to his great illustrations. The girls on the dock are the owner’s grand daughters and the dog, their gorgeous dog.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Sowa/19796724855
Permalink This denim finish is on the walls of a boy’s room in Denver, CO. It is a Ralph Lauren finish and, as a result of this project, I will never use a Ralph Lauren faux product again (his tools are nice as long as you don’t have to rely on the instructions to teach you how to use them).  I know I was not the only one to struggle with this ‘denim glaze’ as the product was discontinued shortly after I completed this. The glaze was water based which means that it dried quickly. The instructions suggested doing three foot wide bands of the finish at a time and over lapping them a half an inch; thus creating ‘seams’. The picture on the packaging had none of these seams so the client was disappointed with them. She wanted entire walls painted in a single go so there were three of us, water misters in hand climbing over each other trying to paint, scratch off the glaze and keep it wet all simultaneously. It was a nightmare. In hindsight I should have given up on Ralph and remixed the color into an oil glaze but it still would have been difficult (and far more toxic). I do love this room in spite of the headaches it gave me… I think it is a ‘success against all odds’ thing.
Permalink Super cute decorative paint and mural work in girl’s bedroom. This design was inspired by the picture frame in the lower picture. Mom loved the frame and had purchased most of the bedding. She knew that she wanted pink and green but beyond that she left the design up to me. I did the painting as well as the black and white throw pillows and the valences. I painted this room years ago but it is still one of my favorites. I think because, as a kid, it would have been my dream room. Polka dots and daises… what more could a little girl want?
Permalink Jungle mural in boy’s play house in Denver. This was just a run down storage shed that Dad decided to transform into a wonderland for his little boy. Paint Decor Studio painted the murals, built the tent, painted the floorcloth (map of Livingstone’s Africa) and added 3D bits of fake foliage and netting to the ceiling. This is truly a Paint Decor room from floor to ceiling and I was grateful to have the opportunity to bring so many of my own ideas to a project. My inner set designer had a lot of fun with this shed.
Permalink Space Mural in Denver, Colorado home. This is in a kid’s room and is meant to look like the view out the huge front window of a space ship which has landed on an alien planet. The dad (who is a carpenter) is building a huge built in across from this wall which will look like the inside of the ship. I painted another small mural in the middle of that was as well which is meant to be the view out the back window. Someday the family will have me back to take photos of the completed room.. murals, cabinetry and all. I painted this years ago but as I recall I used this book for inspiration. The illustrations are amazing.
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Permalink F-16 fighter jet mural in Castle Rock, Colorado home.  The jet is painted on masonite and cut out and mounted on the wall.  Solved the problems of painting a sleek plane on a textured wall and it will allow the family to take the jet with them if they move. 
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