Shingles

As an interior designer color is everything! As a homeowner and designer of my home, how it looks is important to me. This summer we had to replace the shingles on the water side of our beach cottage. Picture #1 shows the replaced shingles in a lovely wood color, which goes nicely with the house colors.

Along comes a painter. I told him I wanted them to look natural.  He had to power-wash the other three areas, which if you notice the lack of black paint on trim, now has to be repainted.  It was bad enough that the builder left out the round window on two ends of the house and garage, but now it looks like a very big seagull dropped more than once.

He idea of clear is shown in the next two photographs.  My idea is now the color combination is VERY bad.   Since I work in design and clients often come to my home studio, having a home where the colors do not work, does not work for me.  My choice is now, do I go ballistic at him, as he thinks it looks “rich” or do I just repaint the whole house ($$$)   The sample he showed me did not change the color of the wood.  When do painters have the right or think they do to change colors you select.

If I were not color expert, I might not mind the BS, but I do.  I told him to give me Value based from 1 to 10 on the two walls.  He agreed that the light and natural wall was about a 2 (1 being the lightest) and his new re-invented color was about a 6.  I told him, he did not have the right to make changes in my choices, but now I am stuck for the moment with a half done job that does not look good.

I also did not appreciate having to clean up cigarette butts from my yard, but that is doable, buy comparison.

Tell me, what would you?

New Evidence – Another Mona Lisa by de Vinci

The “Isleworth Mona Lisa”

Evidence for New Mona Lisa Mounts

What at first seemed highly improbable – even ludicrous – is now closer to becoming a reality: The evidence in favor of a second, older Mona Lisa by Leonardo is growing.

New tests and scholarly attributions are moving in favor of attributing a recently re-discovered painting to Leonardo da Vinci. Advocates of the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” claim this to be the original, painted when the sitter, Lisa del Giocondo, was in her youth.

Since the painting’s revelation in Geneva in September 2012, the Zurich-based Mona Lisa foundation has spear-headed efforts to demonstrate the painting’s authenticity (though it claims to have no financial interest in the work).

One strong piece of evidence came from a carbon-dating test performed by The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). The test results directly refute arguments that the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” is a later, 16th-century copy of the Louvre’s painting. ETH determined that the painting was almost certainly created between 1410 and 1455 (95.4% probability), and most likely between 1425 and 1450 (68.2% probability).

A second argument was made by Professor John Asmus, a nuclear physicist who conducted four tests on the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” and the Louvre’s “Gioconda.” By digitizing the brushstrokes of both paintings, Asmus determined that they would have been painted by the same artist.

Alfonso Rubino’s application of Vitruvian geometry to the “Isleworth Mona Lisa”

Further support has come from Italian geometrist Alfonso Rubino, who, after studying Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man” in relation to the artist’s paintings, determined that Leonardo incorporated Vitruvian geometry into his other artwork. Rubino has studied the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” and concluded that its similar proportions and structure serve as incontrovertible evidence of Leonardo’s authorship.

The Isleworth Mona Lisa still has notable detractors in the world of art history. British Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp has argued vehemently against the painting’s acceptance, as has U.S. scholar Richard Spear.

You can see my artwork at http://www.dianakingsley.net