Painter Girl

Mermaid Bathroom

Here is a quick, fun project I recently completed for a client.  The homeowner had a picture of a Mermaid she really loved, so it was adapted to fit her colors and space.  Years ago, I bought Linda Buckingham's book, Projection Stenciling, and learned this easy way to stencil.

I first projected my image onto a large piece of paper.  Next, I taped it to the wall and cut out sections at a time to stencil, replacing sections as I went, to keep a clean edge abutting the next section. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you use a sharp blade and cut lightly, you do not cut into the wall. I use this method when I just want to block in color and then do a lot of free-hand painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here she is, completed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look closely, you will see that I added some tiny gems around her ear and at the tips of her fins, her eye, and the eye of the fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the opposite wall, I added four more fish, one for each of the homeowners children.  The three fish near the Mermaid represent each of her sister's children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I added a few gems on this wall too!

Birch Trees

Birch Trees on walls has been very big this year.  We have seen it done with various expensive wallpapers and wall decals.  They are quick and easy to freehand or stencil and can be customized to fit a particular space. 

 

 

 

 

 

Last year I experimented with some Birch Trees on a wall in my living room.  I love bringing a little piece of the outdoors, right inside my house!

 

 

 

 

 

I did these Birch Trees in a very small Powder Room as part of the Cambridge House Project (see yesterday's post).  I drew the trees on two opposing walls, with a brown watercolor pencil.  I then used a brown water based paint and liner brush to execute the trees.  Some trees were done in a lighter brown, thinning the paint more with water, to achieve some depth.  This is a very, very small room.  You are seeing the entire width of the room here, maybe 4' wide. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A closer look.  Because it is such tight quarters in this room, it was very hard to get a good shot!

 

 

This is the opposite wall.  It looks unfinished in the center because a long mirror will be mounted here, the width of the sink.  The only wall space that will be seen once the mirror is mounted, will be to the left and right of the sink, floor to ceiling.  The base of the mirror will come about 1" above the owls head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days after I completed this project, I got a call from my good friend and fellow decorative painter, Chris Smith, telling me she had a Birch Tree project to do for a client of hers. Here is her beautiful interpretation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are not inclined to freehand some trees, Helen Morris over at the Stencil Library has a wonderful Bare Trees stencil design that can be custom ordered to the size you need.

Finished and Hung!

I brought the mural up from my studio and hung it on the wall in my office again, so I could make some adjustments.  The angle of the license plate was off, so I whited it out. 

There are 2 additional canvas pieces, one on the right and one on the left, that will be added on the job site.  They are too big to fit on this wall.  The two pieces extend the ripped paper effect.

 

 

 

 

Now I just fooled around with it, adding shading and shadowing and highlights. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recruited my lovely daughter, Sarah, to help me install the mural at the job site.  She was a great help and is a few inches taller than me, so could reach the very top with no problem!  Here she is burnishing away.

The mural is installed over the entryway to the customer lounge/waiting room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is up, minus the right hand piece of "torn paper".  I was having trouble getting the right edge to stay glued to the wall, so I decided to leave it overnight, with some pushpins in to secure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I returned the next day, the right edge was looking good.  I added a little more wallpaper glue at the top and the right side, then I added the final section of canvas on the right.  And of course, I still did some tweaking...more work on the lisence plate and I added some pearl glaze to all the glass.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the only angle where I could stand to get the entire mural in the frame of my camera.  The hallway it is in, is only about 10' wide.  The good news is that it is opposite a huge wall of floor to ceiling glass and the mural is very visible as you drive into the lot.

When Sarah and I installed this mural, the place was closed.  When I returned the following day, few people where around, so I've had very little feedback about this mural.  It's not clear to me whether they like it or not.  I guess time will tell.

 

VW Mural... getting there!

Well, of course, I had hoped to finish this mural today, but, for those of you who do murals, you know they always take longer than you think they will.  At least when you are doing a finish on a wall, you get to a point and you know you are done!  Not so with a mural.  You never seem to feel "done".  There is always a lot of endless tweaking.  I'm not even to the tweaking point yet though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did a little more work on the front of the car...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... and added more detail to the back end of the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent a lot of time getting the "torn paper" to look like "torn paper".  I feel I did make some very good progress today, and I sure hope I can finish this tomorrow because I will fall behind with some other jobs if not. :-(  It's always a juggling act.  Luckily, they are really just my own self imposed deadlines, so there is some wiggle room here as far as the installation date.  I did convince my daughter to help me hang this on her day off, so I'm shooting for that.  Oh... and the good news... she found an apartment we both like, so now that search has come to and end!  Yay! 

VW Mural Progress

 

Now the canvas is laid out on my table in my oh so spaceous and well appointed  small and rustic studio. You can barely see the sketch I did from the projection, but it's all there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started with the background, which will be a VW Wallpaper repeat design. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the background was in, I started blocking out some of the car and the "ripped paper" surrounding the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a far shot of the mural in progress.  This is the only angle I can stand at in my studio and get the entire canvas in the picture frame of my camera.

That's as far as I got because my daughter is in the process of changing apartments, so I spent a few hours looking at new places with her.  Yuck, there are a lot of bad apartments out there for a lot of money. :-(  We did see one the other day that was great, but the young woman who saw it just before we did, decided she wanted it, so the hunt continues.

 

 

 

Work In Progress

I've been devoting so much time to getting my act together with Social Media/Networking,  that you must think I am doing nothing but that!  Well, not true.  A girl does have eat and pay her bills. 

I've got this mural going on for Minuteman Volkswagon.  You may recall my recent lettering and logo stint over there.  The best part about this mural is the fact that 99% of it can be done right in my studio.  I'm doing it on canvas and will then mount it to the wall in the showroom.

Here are two rough sketches I did for this job:

The idea is to have the new Jetta, bursting through a wallpapered wall.  I tried a front view of the car and a side view.  I also fooled around with the background colors of the wallpaper.  It was decided to go ahead with the design concept on the right; the side view, but with a dark blue background.  

 

I sketched the background, then cut out the views of the Jetta from a brochure.  I then tore open the background wallpaper I created and inserted the car, so I could see exactly how the torn paper looked, the shadows it cast, etc.  While I was cutting out one of the cars, the xacto knife rolled off of my table and knicked my toe! 

I was working barefoot, in my office. 

 

Once I had my little injury under control, I scanned my sketch into my computer and made a transparency to project onto canvas.  

Here you can see the canvas tacked up on my wall in my office.  I only have cinder-block walls in my studio, so this is a better surface to work on for projecting my image.    Now I have it roughly sketched out, so I can roll this up and take it downstairs to my studio to start painting.  I put a white basecoat on the canvas prior to tacking it up on the wall.  The canvas is approximately 4' x 7'.   More tomorrow...

 

Another Fun Teambonding® Event

You may recall the Hand Mural event that Chris Smith and I participated in back in June.  The lovely Jayne Hannah from Teambonding® recently gave us a call to assist with another fun mural project.

The participants of this event were employees of Covidien,  taking part in their annual Give Back Day.  In our room, three large murals were created and will be donated to a needy non-profit organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each mural is comprised of 8 individual canvases.  We had one Hot Air Balloon Mural and Two Fish Murals.  Here you see the panels all laid out, ready to be painted.  The canvases already had the outlined images on them, so we were there to just guide our budding artists.

 

 

 

 

We taped these two pictures of the murals to the wall for participants to refer to as their guide. They could choose how they wanted to work: paint one canvas, or move around to several. Most participants teamed up and worked two to a panel.

 

There was no shortage of brilliant colors to choose from, as well as a variety of brushes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris and I were very impressed with how creative everyone was with this project.  No one seemed timid about delving right in with the paint!  Here you see two happy artists working on a Hot Air Balloon panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture to the right, you see Chris (in black) pointing out a section that was missed. Below are more photos of the completed panels:

 

When all the 8 panels were assembled, participants scrambled around, putting on the final touches!

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone had a great time, admiring their work and seeing it all come together!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Fish Murals, although identical in desgin, came out quite differently, as you can see:

 

 

 

 

 

 

When everyone was done, Chris and I added the company logo to each of the 3 murals.

Another fun and successful Give Back Day for Covidien and Teambonding®! To read more abouth this and other Give Back projects employees participated in that day, click on this article from the Sun Chronicle here.

 

Continuation of An Interesting Week

Last week I was writing about some unexpectedly different opportunities that came my way.  I ended the week with one very fun assignment I need to tell you about!

Jayne Hannah, Director of Corporate Events, at Teambonding®, contacted me for help with a Hands On Mural project.  Teambonding® custom designs team building programs for large corporations, non-profits and universities, meeting and event planners as well as hotel, resorts and conference centers. Take a look at some of their past events here.

There were 130 participants for this particular Teambonding experience.  The Hand Mural was just a small part of their busy day.  The very organized, Jayne Hannah, knew this mural project was going to have to be done quickly and efficiently, so she had it well planned out.  I was allowed to bring an assistant, and Jayne also provided several  helpers where and when needed.  This event was held in the Rose Kennedy Ballroom at the lovely Intercontinental Hotel in Boston.   I could not have had a better team to work with.  Chris Smith happily agreed to join me that day, and Jayne brought along 3 other very competent team members.  As soon as lunch was over and the ballroom empty, the Hand Mural team flew into high gear, readying the room for their return.  We covered the floor beneath the 13 large, round tables with plastic.  More plastic went on the table tops.  Chairs were moved around.  Paint supplies were laid out on all tables.  Chris and I had done a bit of prep work the previous day.  I had pre-cut 150 twelve inch RocLon® fabric squares for the hand prints and Chris hemmed a 10' x 10' piece of canvas.  After a feverish 45 minute transformation of the ballroom, our participants returned.

Jayne explained the project, although they did not know what was going to be done with the hand prints they would be making.  That would be revealed later in the day.  I gave a quick demonstration of how they were to do their hand print.  Each table was given a specific color paint to use.  Using a small, foam roller, they would roll the paint onto one hand and stamp their canvas square with their imprint.  Wet Wipes and paper towels were at each table for clean up.  The Hand Print Team ran around from table to table, assisting where needed.  The hand prints came out great! 

Next, the participants were given an afternoon assignment, which was a Scavenger Hunt through the streets of Boston.  They exited the ballroom in teams of 13, armed with backpacks and GPS's to find clues around the city.  As soon as they were out the door, the Hand Print Team once again, sprang into action.

Chris, armed with her hot glue gun, tacked down a rod pocket on the 10' x 10' canvas.  Other team members cut out the hand shapes, cleaned up the tables, and picked up the plastic.  I sketched out the outline of the shape the hands would form.  We were to have the 130 hands form the shape of the company logo of the client.

The logo was projected onto a screen.  It looks like a giant comma.

Here you can see the hands all laid out.  The center was left blank, for a slogan that would later be placed there.  Because we had a limited time frame to do this project, none of us could stop and take pictures of the actual progress!  Everyone eagerly pitched in, helping Chris and I arrange the hands.  We used a permanent spray adhesive to attach all of these hands, so you can imagine how quickly we were working! Not to mention, how carefully we were working to keep the adhesive from getting everywhere in this ballroom.

This close up shows you how neat all the hands look together!  It was important to have them all touching at some point, a key component of the participants team building experience.

When everyone returned from the Scavenger Hunt, the Hands On Mural was revealed!

After a long day, a happily exhausted Jayne and Chris are ready to go home!  Chris and I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and the opportunity to work with Jayne Hannah and be a part of this Team Building experience.  We look forward to future assignments!

Tropical Bathroom-3rd Addition

Susan and I are still working at the same house where I did the horse mural I last featured.  While I was busy doing that mural, Susan was working in the basement level of this house, in the husband's bathroom.  This is his little sanctuary.  In a house inhabited by 5 females (his wife and 4 daughters), he definitely needs his own bathroom!  Over the years, this bathroom has taken on a life of its' own.  I began, several years ago, fulfilling his request for a Tropical Mural on one wall.

He very creatively added this netting!  He also added this funny pink flamingo, which the girls all love:

His name is Frank.  (the Flamingo, that is!)

A few years later, when I returned to do other work in this home, I was asked to extend the mural onto a second wall:

 Then, last year when I was back in this house doing 3 of the girl's bedrooms, I just added this beautiful turquoise color on the sink wall, to make the mirror really pop:

This time, I think we are finally done with this room! I painted the white wall you see above, the same turquoise color.  Susan created this awesome textured finish with raised fossils.  She used Aquastone, glazed with earth/sand tones:

Here's a closer look.

Now, when you enter this long, narrow bathroom, you are greeted by the 2 fossil walls that surround the toilet, then you see the mural that runs the length of the left hand wall.  The other mural is to the right of the shower stall, behind the fossil wall.  Although this bathroom was completed in three stages, it all seems to flow quite nicely!  The new textured walls and the turquoise walls really make you feel like you are in the tropics!
 

Horse Mural

Susan and I have been very busy this week working on several projects in a home of a long time client.  Our "To Do List" at this house includes making over two bathroom vanities; adding a finish on two walls in another bathroom; a horse mural for a young girl who just turned 7; and a fabulous makeover for the family Game Room.

We decided the best way to tackle this job was to divide and conquer.  I took the Horse Mural, while Susan worked on the 2 vanities and the 2 walls in the 3rd bathroom.  We will work on the Game Room together.

I started out by carrying the ceiling color down onto the wall and then adding in a field of green and some clouds in the sky.

Next I projected the horse image I wanted onto the wall and sketched it in.  I used four different overheads for this mural, some stencils, and also some freehand work to complete the composition.  I made an overhead from a picture of the Birthday Girl riding a horse.  I found another horse that I liked better than the one the girl was riding in the picture, so I used that horse instead.

Here's the work in progress with my reference material taped up.

There was a request for a pony in the mural too, so one was included.

Here you can see the Birthday Girl riding a horse and the pony looking on.

 I added two rabbits (Sheri Hoeger's stencils), and freehanded the flowers. 

A closer look. (click on any photo to see an enlarged view)

The two butterflies were done using stencils. The rabbits were done using two great stencils from the Mad Stencilist.

The homeowners will be putting this room back together over the weekend, so when I return on Monday I will take a few pictures on the entire room.  Right now, I'm climbing over a lot of furniture all pushed into the center of the room.