Camouflage

Before

After

This is something else I specialise in. When I first began doing this on a small scale for antique dealers, I was the only person in the country to do it. Now I am the best, and I can do it on any scale whatsoever. This example on new stonework of the frieze to the pediment of a large country house is about 70 feet across.

It is really simple, but you have to understand colour and how the pigments react with their surroundings. People ask me how to do it and I freely tell them, knowing that 99% of them will never be able to replicate it.

It's a really weird thing, but this sort of work produces no glory whatsoever. In a very short period of time, the client forgets what the object used to look like, simply because I have made it look as though it has naturally evolved into the thing he sees when he next looks at it, and people have very short memories.

I once repaired a badly damaged item for a dealer, and when he came to collect it he said it looked fine and asked how much I owed him. I said £X and he said, "But I can't see what you have done to it. How could I possibly owe you that much?"

I relied that if he could see what I had done to it, the bill would be much smaller, and I would be worth less than I was charging.