(for the Design*Sponge DIY contest, March 2008) 

 

Introduction

The mural is painted on a bedroom wall. We live on the top floor of a very old Amsterdam ‘pakhuis‘ and many of the rooms have sloping ceilings and unusual ‘nooks & crannies’. The sloped shape of the walls on either side of the bedroom window seemed to lend themselves to a forest mural (and we liked the idea of ’sleeping in the woods’!). The forms of the branches were inspired by a papercut forest I had been working on at the end of 2007 (you can view pics of this here and here). My original intention was to include a couple of creatures as part of the mural but while I was working on it I decided instead to make separate small paintings of forest creatures to be hung amongst the branches. An interior mural is essentially a static thing and the idea of making it more dynamic, changeable, appealed to me. So with the separate paintings it can be added to or subtracted from, altered to reflect a mood, an event, or the shifting seasons…

Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the work-in-progress (at the time I didn’t know I’d be submitting it to the Design*Sponge DIY contest!) but you can view a Flickr set of the completed mural here > 

  

What you’ll need – for the mural:

• a wall
• tape measure
• pencils (for sketching your initial design & for transferring your design on to the wall)
• paintbrushes of various sizes (and a paint roller for the initial ‘background’ coat(s) of paint if your wall is a big one)
• interior water-based wall paint (enviro friendly & VOC/toxin free if you can find it!) in two colours (*see the note below)
• water (for thinning paint and cleaning brushes)
• old newspapers (to protect your floorboards/carpets from drips)

*Note: I used charcoal and white paint and mixed a third colour (pale grey) from these original two. Your mural design may call for more colours and colour choices are obviously entirely up to you :-). I have also not noted paint quantities here as the amount of paint you require will depend entirely on how big your wall is and what area you wish to cover with each colour. House/decorating paints usually include some indication of the kind of coverage you can expect on the packaging, and once you’ve measured your wall (step 1 below) and come up with your design (step 2 below) you’ll know roughly how much coverage will be required from each colour.

Here are some (UK based) resources for ‘natural’ non-toxic decorating paints:
www.nutshellpaints.com , www.naturalpaints.org.uk , www.preciousearth.co.uk , www.ecospaints.com , www.earthbornpaints.co.uk

1. Measure the wall’s dimensions and prepare a drawing (roughly to scale) of the wall’s ‘outlines’, including any elements that will impact on your mural’s design (e.g. windows, radiators, built-in shelves, exposed pipes, fireplace etc.). You will use this ‘plan’ to sketch out the design of your mural. If you’ve made this drawing freehand on a piece of paper it’s a good idea to make some photocopies so you have a few extra should you wish to sketch out several designs or make alterations to initial ideas. Alternatively you can draw the ‘plan’ of your wall digitally (if you’re a user of software like Adobe Illustrator) and once you have a digital file you can print out as many ‘templates’ as you need as you work on your design ideas.

2. Create your mural design. This can be as rough or as ‘finished’ as you like but it’s probably best to have a pretty good idea of how you hope the final mural will look. As it’s a fairly labour intensive project you don’t want to be disappointed with the end result.

3. Once you’ve decided on your design paint the entire wall with the ‘background’ colour (in my case this was the ‘charcoal’, and because it’s a dark colour it covered the scruffiness of the old wall quickly and effectively). Allow paint to dry… watching it dry is unadvisable.

4. Using your design sketch as reference draw your design on to the wall with a soft pencil. I used a white chalk pencil which showed up well on the dark background and was easy to erase – with a damp cloth – if I wanted to make changes along the way. Try to use a pencil that is a similar colour to one of your paint colours (this will ensure it’s not too visible in places where you might not have completely painted over it once the mural is finished). I drew my design freehand on to the wall but I guess you could use a projector of some sort if you prefer to trace your initial design more precisely.

5. If, like me, you intend to use just three colours with the third colour being a mix of the first two then now is the time to mix up a good big batch of that third colour. You don’t want to run out of the colour half way through and then find you struggle to mix an exact match. Variations in colour, even subtle ones, will be very obvious in the completed mural so unless you’re going for a more painterly/expressive effect it’s very important to make sure you have enough of the mixed colour to complete the job.

6. The best bit!: paint your mural and enjoy the heady freedom of being able to work on such a large ‘canvas’!

What you’ll need – for the separate painting(s):

• a prepared board or canvas
• artist’s acrylic paints (e.g. Winsor & Newton acrylic colours & mediums)
• glow-in-the-dark paint (I used an old Humbrol luminous enamel paint I had to hand. However it appears to no longer be manufactured – possibly toxic as hell?!)
• brushes
• water / turps (for cleaning brushes)
• matt varnish (for adding a protective layer to the final painting – optional)

 

I’m not sure how to provide a step-by-step guide for making the paintings – if you’re an artist who makes paintings you’ll already have your methods and if not then just get out the paints and brushes and start creating!

However I can supply some useful hints & tips for making the paintings if, like me, you wish to integrate them seamlessly (all things being relative) into your wall mural:

i. For the owl painting I hung the prepared board in its intended final position and drew a new set of branches on the board that linked up with the existing mural branches. Apart from where they link up the branches on the painting are not identical to the branches ‘behind’ it on the mural – instead I drew branches that would (a) provide a good perch for the owl and (b) result in a painting that would work (compositionally) if viewed independently of the mural (when we move we can take the painting with us but will have to leave the wall, and therefore the mural, behind :-)

ii. Use the same paints (i.e. the house/decorating paints you used to paint the mural) for the background of your painting(s). This helps to integrate it with the mural. Use your artist’s acrylics for the ’subject’ of your painting (in my case, the owl).

iii. Don’t worry if your painting doesn’t integrate seamlessly with the mural behind it when viewed from certain angles and positions in the room. I’m no expert on optics but I’m pretty sure this would be impossible. Because the separate painting will be made on a board (or stretched canvas) that is raised a couple of centimetres away from the wall the ‘joins’ between painting and mural will not always be seamless… but it will still look great!

iv. As the painting(s) will not be framed it’s a good idea to give it a coat of matt varnish to protect it from wear ‘n tear and the general ravages of time. I haven’t actually done this with mine yet but hope to get around to it some day soon…

Happy mural painting!