Venetian Plastering Trends

Venetian plaster:

This has to be one of the biggest trends right now. I was very lucky to be introduced to venetian plaster back in the early 1990’s, I was doing quite a lot of work for Jocasta Innes who started an amazing company called Paint Magic, there were many Paint Magic shops and she used to source materials for specialist decoration, so it was readily available for all, she had invited an Italian company over to demonstrate marmorino and I was lucky enough to be invited, I fell in love with the finishes you could achieve with venetian plaster, they showed us how to do raised stencils, and I thought.. wow!! You cannot achieve that with paint and the textures I had been using. I swiftly booked a flight over to Venice, home of the polished plaster and did a course at San Marco.

Ever since then I have used Venetian plasters extensively in my work and every year it has become more and more popular. I can think of many reasons why the demand has exploded, it is extremely versatile, firstly it can be used anywhere, there are plasters for interiors and exteriors, bathrooms including wet areas, you can apply to doors so they match your walls creating a seamless finish, it can be subtle with hardly any movement or more dramatic with different colours added, it can be natural, textured and matt or smooth and highly polished. You can create marble effects with it, raised or flat stencil designs or maybe banded designs with smooth and textured, in fact there is no end to the possibilities and if you do not wish to do a large area it looks great as a feature wall or on a chimney breast wall.
Venetian plaster is a term that covers many different finishes for example a plaster with a high shine is called polished plaster, spatulata or spatulata veneziano and of course you have many different brand names, there are many companies selling it in the UK now, back when I started using venetian plaster, the product range was limited and it wasn’t so readily available in the UK in fact few people had heard of it, so I used to import crates of it straight from the factory, I don’t need to do that now as its so easy to buy. I have my favorite products and suppliers but am completely independent and not tied to any one product which gives me the freedom to experiment with a vast range of brands and products.

Back when I started using venetian plaster, the product range was limited and it wasn’t so readily available in the UK in fact few people had heard of it, so I used to import crates of it straight from the factory. When I run my venetian plastering courses you can be assured that you will get all the inside knowledge, a complete understanding of the application and expert tuition.