A brilliant facade

The facades look so real you almost expect to feel the roughness of the stones in the archway, but the images are just paintings used to embellish homes and rooms, including some around Cape Girardeau.

Marty Riley of Cape Girardeau and Roger Brown, a native of the city who now lives in Tennessee, both use mural paintings in homes and businesses as a creative outlet.

A nurse by trade, Riley has painted jungle murals on four walls of a bedroom, a border in the nursery at St. Francis Medical Center and finished scores of pet portraits.

Brown is now an artist by profession, who is usually booked six to nine months ahead. He has painted children's bedrooms, faux windows in bathrooms and hallways and scenes from Ireland on a stairwell.

"He just does all kinds of things," said his mother, Earleen Brown. "He even had to go in and paint rugs on a floor that look so real you can't tell the difference."

Both have had their work commissioned through word of mouth -- a friend asked Riley to reproduce a painting, and the nurse's hobby turned into something more. Now she's between projects, but that won't last long -- she has already got one or two others lined up.

From sales to art

Brown was working as an eyeglass salesman in California when an artist asked to see his portfolio. One Monet reproduction later and Brown was painting murals for such Hollywood names as Elizabeth Taylor and Kenny Loggins.

"It was like a blessing," Brown said of his first job.

Riley paints mostly in the evenings and early mornings "when I'm at my peak."

Brown schedules his painting times around the schedule of his clients. "I make it a real treat for everybody. I sit down with the client and talk about what they like and what they want in the painting."

If he's painting a mural that includes a bottle of wine, he might add the date of their wedding as the vintage date on the painted bottle. The time he spends per job depends on what he's painting.

There have been some jobs completed in a day and others that lasted on and off for nearly two years. Now Brown is working on a series for the upcoming Parade of Homes in Nashville, where he lives. The Parade of Homes is a public tour of area homes, usually newly built, that includes elements of decorating, architecture and style. Images of his work will air on HGTV and a local talk show in Nashville.

Brown typically paints with acrylics but does the detail work in oils for its richer color and easier blending capabilities, he said.

Riley does most of her artwork in acrylic paints but does some pieces in chalk and charcoal. The acrylics are best because of their bright colors and because they dry fast, she said.

Animal crackers

Painting wall murals requires a clean wall and fresh coat of paint. She recently finished a four-wall mural that depicts scenes from a jungle with zebras, lions, tigers and monkeys.

With each mural, Riley has a favorite part of the picture. In the jungle, she prefers the lions perched atop a rock. Animal portraits, particularly of family pets, were the first paintings Riley completed when she took up art again.

As children and teen-agers, both Riley and Brown were interested in art.

Riley was always doodling and drawing on paper. She took art courses in high school and college, but didn't like the prospect of being a starving artist, so she chose another career.

Brown was always drawing, says his mother. "He would sit around the table and draw after school and on rainy days." But after high school and a few art classes, he put the canvas away for eight years.

But the diversity of his work and subject matter makes it interesting. "People are looking for something special and unique that not everybody is going to have. It's a conversation piece. That's part of decorating."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126