PROFESSIONALLY DESIGNED STENCILS "TO THE TRADE"

Anne Bishton Stencils was founded because of a growing need for fresh, innovative, historical, and custom-made pattern design for interior surfaces. Although stencils have been available for sale for some years, there has been a significant gap in the marketplace for high-end, historically accurate stencils created by professionally trained designers and pattern-makers. We feel our stencils supply both criteria. We offer our stencils to professional designers, architects, finishers, and the retail customer.

Our "To the Trade" discount allows financial flexibility to professionals while still allowing the retail customer to experience elegant design at an affordable price. Our stencils are designed specifically for the professional painter or finisher who is familiar with stencil use and the application of various paint and plaster techniques on surfaces. If you are a professional interior designer or architect, please contact a trained decorative painter in your area for application of our stencils. If you are in the New Orleans area, and the greater Southern area including Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, please call Anne Bishton Design LLC, or go to annebishtondesign.com to have our company personally apply our finishes and stencils for your clientele.

Our stencils are designed by an F.I.T., New York City trained designer and an assistant trained in textile pattern design in England. Our overall stencil designs are thoroughly researched for their historical value, integrity, and aesthetics, and their ability to translate effectively on wall surfaces. We use every source of inspiration available, whether it be an architectural ornament, a textile pattern, a manuscript border or an element found in a painting of a specific era. Our original designs are inspired by our own knowledge of a particular region's history and artistic style or a particular stylistic period.

STENCIL MATERIAL, SIZES, AND CUSTOM ORDERS

Our stencils are constructed of mylar, a transparent polyester film of high tensile strength, stability and flexibility. Mylar is washable with warm soap and water and will stand up to repeated use. We recommend cleaning our stencils after each use. The thickness of mylar we use is .5 millimeters but occasionally a heavier thickness (7 mm.) is used for our more intricate patterns. Our stencils have registration marks (small triangular marks cut out of the mylar) which makes re-aligning the stencil foolproof and ensures perfect repeats of the pattern. Anne Bishton Stencils offers stencils in two sizes; standard size, which comprises two to four repeats ranging in size up to 2 1/2' x 3', to production size which is a large stencil containing at least four repeats and measuring up to 4' x 4'.

We can produce a stencil in whichever size a customer may need by special order. If you need a pattern enlarged we are able to do that; or we can modify an existing design if that is required. We design completely original stencils per customer request, or, we can draw an original design from sketches or photographs supplied by our clientele. We can also make a stencil out of a design a customer or designer already has and wants to duplicate in stencil format.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

We hope designers, professional finishers and first-time stencil users will feel free to call or write to us with any questions they might have about how to use, modify, or place a custom order for our stencils. We are available by email or telephone and if you have to leave a message we will respond promptly. We are a new and growing business and hope that our designs will complement the layout of your professional interior design or architectural plan. We hope you will write to us with feedback on our products, our services and our customer care, as we hope to make Anne Bishton Stencils a dependable and visionary design resource for all professionals in the field of interior decoration.

HISTORICALLY ACCURATE DESIGNS AND
ORIGINAL PATTERNS AND MOTIFS

Anne Bishton Stencils specializes in both original designs or historically accurate patterns and motifs.

For our Renaissance stencil collection we researched patterns that exemplified the classical, graceful, harmonious style of the period and painstakingly researched hundreds of period design sources; ecclesiastical ornamental design, monastic interior decoration and murals, wallpaper designs, embroidery patterns on clothing, scrolls, vestment patterns from Renaissance tombs, textiles, and designs from illuminated manuscripts. Our Renaissance stencils faithfully reflect the era and range from delicate allover arabesques to more linear or diagonal allover stylized patterns and small fleur de lys repeats.

The Baroque style was theatrical, ornate, and sometimes grotesque. Architecture and carved decoration, textiles and book illustrations all came alive with dramatic renderings of motifs and patterns. Our Baroque stencil collection includes intertwined scrolls and plant motifs, arabesques, phantasmagoric scrolling flowers and floreate or vegetal repeat patterns and has the same spirit of rich overabundance, grandeur, and movement that embodied the era.

The Victorian era embraced an eclectic mix of design and past styles such as Rococo and Gothic architecture and ornamentation experienced a significant revival. New imports of Chinese carpets, fabrics and porcelain also contributed to the panoply of available style choices. Overly ornamented furniture, heavily patterned wallpapers and carpets, rich dark colors such as forest green and ruby red, velvet and damask fabrics were all typical design features of the era. Our stencil collection for the Victorian period concentrates on damask patterns and close repeats of large foliate motifs.

Chinese decoration has always included animal and flower motifs as symbols of good fortune. By filling their homes and altars with lucky signs and images the Chinese believe that good fortune and prosperity will surround them and grace their lives with happiness and fulfillment. The chrysanthemum symbolized longevity and a life of ease; the lotus, purity and perfection because it grows from mud to become a pristine object of beauty; bamboo, integrity and resilience; the pine tree, endurance. Our Chinese stencil collection features several chrysanthemum designs and an original landscape scene with pagodas and 'good fortune' trees.

Our Indian stencils comprise both traditional Hindu designs and Mughal decorative patterns. The Mughals' taste for beauty and delicacy both in art and architecture blended with native Indian traditional art and flowered into one of the most elegant and refined artistic achievements in the world. Anne Bishton Stencils incorporates a traditional Indian paisley motif in our design "Chavi", and a contemporary original design lightly inspired by paisleys in "Sanchali".

Prior to 1935, Iran was referred to as Persia by the West. The Persian Empire, though based in Iran, was once used to describe the nations of the Middle East, its empires, or it's people. Its decorative tradition spanned centuries and was heavily influenced by Chinese, Arabic and Hellenic design. Idealized landscapes (often based on innovative garden design), scrolling leaves with serrated edges, bird and flower motifs, and intricate geometric patterns were some of the hallmarks of Persian design. Our Persian stencils include "Shalimar", inspired by a book illustration and the garden of the same name, and "Hafez", a garden scene with figures of a nobleman and his servant.