An optical illusion?  No, simply the sunlight playing with letters painted on plate glass, the front window at the Painterly Craft showroom, on the street level of what looks like it could be a re-purposed firehouse in Watertown’s East End, bordering Boston.  Were you to step inside, though, you would see optical illusion, often taking advantage of natural light playing on color, setting a mood – most people say it “feels like home.”

No, what we do is not quite magic!  We simply paint . . . 

. . . murals, mainly in homes, restaurants, offices, designed expressly to change your perspective on the space around you -- opening corners, adding elevation, increasing depth.  Look through the gallery of MURALS.

. . . decorative finishes: faux marble and faux wood-grain, to transform enameled woodwork; tromp l’oeil (talk about optical illusion!); tinted washes and glazes, sponged and ragged treatments, to make walls shimmer in the sunlight.  A bit too fantastic?  Well, take a look at the DECORATIVE FINISHES page!

But there’s nothing simple about what we do.  Mood doesn’t come easily!  Our immediate objective in every assignment is to translate your particular preferences into paint, to make you comfortable in the space around you.  We apply design and color principles to a plan only after understanding what you want.  

In fact, sometimes all you might need is the plan alone, without any painting, specialized or otherwise.  That’s when you can take advantage of our expertise with . . . 

. . . page-a-planner service, color and interior design consultation, delivered in a written, illustrated report, for a modest fee, but often in informal guidance as a benefit to established clients.  Illusion does not start with the paint!  In fact, it comes only with a plan.  The page-a-planner page can help you tackle any spatial problem you might have.  But should you choose to tackle it entirely on your own, you can still get whatever guidance you need for doing the painting – or even the planning – with Painterly Craft instruction . . . 

. . . either an individual tutorial on whatever problem you’d like or, if you can gather a few friends, a full-scale workshop in a larger subject . . . anything from applying glazes to appreciating works of art.  You can get a more detailed idea from the samples on the TUTORIALS/WORKSHOPS page, describing courses already taught at the Painterly Craft.