I don’t know about you, but I love watching the bonus features after I finish a movie. I want to see how stunts are done, how they chose costumes, interviews with the cast, all that fun stuff. This blog is going to be kind of like that: my thought process, any special details of a piece, and any other fun tidbits that I think you might find interesting. I’ll probably add more features as I go along because, well, I get bored easy and like to stay on my toes 🙂
The first piece I’ll share with you was done over five years ago! Please forgive the horrible photos; they were taken with a dying camera very quickly.
Medium: Acrylic paint on walls
Size: An entire bedroom!
Time to complete: I think we did this over the span of two days, but it may have been three. It was a time saver that the walls were already blue; after I drew in the water lines, my friend painted the top white. It was fun working together!
History behind the piece: My friend was pregnant with her second child, and they were playing the switch the bedrooms around game to make room for their expanding family. This had been the master bedroom, and now would be their daughter’s room and future joint kid’s room. They wanted something fun, colorful, and that the kids could grow with. Once the under water theme was decided upon, we had so much fun designing all the creatures and fun details.
Thought process: Knowing it was going to be a kid’s room, we had to do something fun and cartoonish. I used inspiration from some of my kid’s books, and movies such as ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Finding Nemo’. You’ll notice that we did a submarine, and we didn’t intentionally choose yellow for it, but honestly it was the only color that looked right for it!
Problems I encountered: I don’t remember exactly any problems. I do remember that painting the treasure box was difficult; who knew the perspective on those things was so awkward?
Fun tidbits: We named some of the fish! There was a little orange fish that looked like a football, and we named him Manny after Peyton Manning.
The sailboat was in the original design, but when I do a mural, I try to put in a little something special, almost like a little gift from me to the person the mural is for. I ended up naming the boat after the family, and then we made a fish family underneath to represent the family members.
There also is a fish that I thought was pretty cute, but apparently when it’s dark she looks like a scorpion. Oops!
This was, and still is, the largest mural I’ve done. It was a super fun experience, and I know her kids all enjoyed having such a fun bedroom.
What creature or object from the mural do you like best?
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