Treating the floor as a canvas, I craft large-scale works using acrylics, wax-based colored pencils, and calligraphy pens on ¾” high-density fiberboard (HDF) panels with hardwood surrounds. Sealed with a protective spray and water-based polyurethane, the works feature subjects ranging from antique maps to intricate decorative motifs.
The Celtic Knot
Floor painting interpreting images from the Irish Manuscript, The Book of Kells.
Dimensions: 12’wx8’h
Materials: Acrylic paint, wax-based pencils on HDF
Completed: June 16, 1995, Bloom’s Day – Suzanne Dalton
Set within a bird’s-eye maple surround, this master bedroom floor painting spans six 4’x4′ high-density fiberboard panels totaling 12’x8′. I rendered a textured, cream-colored acrylic base to simulate the parchment of the Book of Kells, incorporating the boards’ cutlines as structural linear elements joined by Celtic knot diamonds—a direct adaptation of my stained-glass window work.
1755 Map of the Great Lakes Canoe Portages
1755 French Map – Great Lakes
Dimensions: 8’wx6’hx3/4″d
Medium: Acrylic paint, calligraphy pens, pigment-water-based markers, rapidographs, wax-based colored pencils.
The floor in the Explorer’s Room is composed of a ¾” heartwood birdseye maple surround. The map inset is ¾” HDF.
Completed: 1993 – Suzanne Dalton
Rendered using da Vinci’s point-to-point technique, I hand-drew and lettered this painted floor map with over 450 freehand inscriptions. Specialized dictionaries allowed me to decode archaic French phrases—like “the island where the bear sleeps”—throughout the map, which also features an elaborate frontispiece drawn by Clyde Foles.
The Explorer’s Room at Camp Potawotami
The Explorer’s Room
…features the French 1755 Great Lakes map and a hand-drawn wall frieze in wax-based pencils of Camp Potawotami’s USGS coordinates. The windows overlook a 7-acre meadow with 2 acres of landscaped gardens.
The artifacts include travel & history books, atlases, Indigenous Indian prints, alabaster vases from Volterra, Sicilian unglazed pottery, and my constructed stained glass lampshades. The floor map and room were featured in the national publication Cabin Life.
San Francisco Bay Floor Map
Entrance to the Bay
Compilation of 1833 Navigational Maps of the San Francisco Bay
Dimensions: 4’wx4’h
Medium: Acrylic paint, calligraphy markers, radiographs, Prisma & Verithin pencils.
Client: Sigrid Rupp AIA, Palo Alto CA
Completed & signed: 1995 – Suzanne Dalton
This work is based on the black & white engraving The Harbour of San Francisco, Nueva California, published in London, England, according to the Act of Parliament at the Hydrographical Office of the Admiralty, March 20th, 1833. Relief was shown by hachures, spot heights, pictorials, and depths by bathymetric soundings, topography, drainage, vegetation, ranchos, missions, and routes—description of tides beneath title; descriptive text throughout.
I added color and dimension, emphasizing the maritime route and sightings through the extremely dangerous channel into San Francisco Bay, the land routes, and the missions. I extended my map north to encompass Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, and the Russian River, including the Russian-American settlements in Sonoma County, and south to include Monterey Bay, Missions San Carlos and San Juan Bautista.
