The Ups and Downs (think ladders) of Painting Murals....

It's been a busy (and happily tiring) two weeks!

I was commissioned to do a series of three murals in a newly remodeled home. Two of the murals were to be done right away, the third a little later. The first two murals are in children's rooms- a fairytale castle for a little girl's room (size: approx 6.5 ft. across and 6 ft. high), and a barnyard/farm scene in a little boy's room. Since the little girl is having a big birthday party tomorrow (Sat.) her mural was the first to be done. I finished it Monday and then started on the barnyard scene. The clients have since added several elements to the barnyard scene so it will be next week before it's completed. Which means I'll be pretty scarce again this coming week.

What have I learned from doing these murals? Well, first of all that I'm not as young as I used to be. Yikes! The first and second day of 6-8 hours of climbing up and down a ladder and constantly holding up my arms to draw and paint told me more about my age than I cared to know :-) But, it's also been wonderful from an art perspective. Being away from my home meant that I wasn't distracted by laundry, meal preparation and all those other time stealers that can wreck a work day. It was wonderful to simply draw, paint and think about nothing but the project before me!

My working method is simple: draw the scene on the wall (I use a pencil) and paint. I use acrylic paints which work well for murals... soap and water clean up and fast drying. I'm posting photos that show the castle mural progressing; the last photo shows the little girl's room with the completed mural. I've made a good start on the barnyard mural but will post that a little later- after almost two weeks of very little computer time I've got a lot of emails and blogging to try to catch up with!

Have a good weekend!