After New York.......

                                               .........New Orleans

 David, my husband and Felix, my middle son, 

came with me to the Annie Sloan Stockists' Meeting in New Orleans which was an incredible experience.  

What a great bunch of  positive inspiring doers the stockists are !! 

We all agree that New Orleans is a fabulous place where Europe meets America.  

 It has the feel of parts of Spain and France and yet it is definitely America.

Love it. Can't wait until next year! 

The French Quarter has some great shops - 

I photographed these great French pieces through the window of a shop in Royal Street. 

Antibes for the door? 

Arles mixed with some Cream ?

The back room of a painted furniture shop in the French Quarter.

Rustic French cupboards and Provencal pots and bowls.

Paris Grey 

Highlights of America

In New York I visited the Russian Tea Rooms with Melissa Riche, who is doing PR for us in North America.  It was her idea and what a great idea it was!  
It was started in the 1920s by members of the Russian Ballet and since then has been a mecca for  entertainment people - Madonna worked there as a coat check girl , it's in loads of films and Rowan Atkinson got married there etc etc....

 The design and the colour is outrageous but perfect.   
Red leather seats, deep green walls and blingy gold
Great Russian paintings on the wall. 

We drank vodka and ate black bread. 

Delicious!

Gold leafed ceiling

Complementary Colours

A complementary is the opposite colour - 

it can mean they fight each other or they get along really well - just like people really!

Purple and yellow are opposite each other on the colour wheel 

With a complemetary one colour is a primary colour and the other is a secondary. 

In this case the primary is Cream - it's a yellow but with lots of white in it. 

The secondary is the Old Violet which is made roughly from two primaries - blue and red. 

Mixing yellow and purple together makes Paloma - a grey made from two complementaries. 

I've made some great boards I have painted with colour swatches I want to share with you! 

Louis Blue & a pop of it's complementary Orange on the cups

I love talking about colour and I think  I can tell you some things that will make painting easier and more fun! 

This is the sort of thing I will be explaining and enlarging on at the Workshops I will be doing all one the USA starting on March 16th in

Dallas 

then 

San Francisco, 

then 

Denver, 

then 

Chicago 

moving to 

Nashville, 

to

  Atlanta, 

then 

Leesburg (near Washington) 

and finally finishing in

Boston 

on April 2nd! 

Get a ticket from this link below

http://www.anniesloanunfolded.com/event/

I don't want to hear you didn't know it was happening! !

Painted Whites

Old White
 is a soft cool neutral undemanding white, 

like the old whitewash seen here in Norman Rockwell's depiction of Tom Sawyer and the painting of the picket fence! 

Old whites are soft like these old French pieces 

It's perfect for the Swedish look too

My Old White is the same colour as the old Lead White which is no longer made. 

Modern whites are bright made possible because of the Titanium White pigment

which was not generally available until the *1930/40s 

SO if you are painting something white and you want it to have that aged look, to be soft and sophisticated like an antique, 

don't paint it in bright white! 

*(Although it was identified in 1795 it was not until 1921 that an economical method of purifying it was established and then it became very popular because it was such a strong opaque colour) 

                                                                                        Annie

My Video on YouTube! 

If you want to know a little about my shop in Oxford and where I work with my great friends and family -  watch this little 3 minute video..

Enjoy

 Annie

The Winner!

Congratulations to 

Misty Brown from Texas who is the lucky winner of a $350 gift certificate from Annie Sloan Unfolded. 

She won the basket giveaway through this blogsite: http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/


What a lucky person!!

Nancy Chace of Sea Rose Cottage was the stockist who sponsored the giveaway of the winner!!

(So sorry I was late posting this - I got caught up with so many things yesterday!! )