Little Birds on a Fence

My mom is reading garden blogs right now since going outside and working in her actual garden is too much for her allergies. She's been sending me garden decorating ideas. One of them is murals on backyard fences.

So, for Mother's Day, I painted some birds on her fence, like they are resting on the top ledge. I did a quick sketch of  a character, trying to keep it uncomplicated. I used acrylic paints because they are the most durable for outside murals.

The fence was old and weathered, so I started out with drawing the shapes, then sanding down the fence to get off dirt, dust and moss. I probably should have hosed it off first, but I was trying to be quick.

I knew painting on the fence would be rough, so I kept the shapes and colors simple. The metal fence and shell bowl on the picture above were taken down after this shot.

The final step will be seal it with a varnish to keep out the weather.

Next up for mom's fence, lizards!

Ilustration Friday - Rescue

Hi Everyone! It's my first IF illustration, even though I've been thinking about it for a long time. I had a lot of fun painting this little bird who needs rescuing from a tree top, hee hee.  Let me know what you think, comments are welcome!

P.S. Does anyone else have a Canon MX310 scanner/printer? I'm still having trouble getting my scans to look good. I have to do some color adjustments and I just don't think it does the original artwork justice.

Whimsical Tree Archway

Like most requests I get, I was asked to make a bland wall into something fun and magical. This playful mural is painted on an archway entrance to a playroom.

These whimsical trees have thick, bushy leaves on top that overlap and expands on to the ceiling and the side walls. It's hard to contain a tree top like that, it kind of took over!

I wanted to make the two pillars look like thick, twisted tree trunks with deep pockets for critters to hide. I actually painted them twice. I DID have a plan, but it didn't translate to the wall. Sometimes that happens. So, I started over and I got the tree trunks I was looking for.

Here are some of the fun critters these kids will get to discover as they play in their friendly forest.

You can click on any of these photos to see a bigger version. If you want to see a close up of a couple other critters from this mural, check out the Sneak Peek blog post.

A Few More Birdies

Happy Valentine's Day! The family and I had a nice day working in the garden, then a bike ride to the park for slides and swings, Beabug's favorite thing to do right now.

I was also able to finish up the "birds on a branch" murals in the bathroom. I did a couple quick sketches before I started drawing on the walls. I should have planned out the whole thing first, but I decided to "wing" it, hee hee.

A few quick sketches by mommy in pen, and a couple sketches by Beabug, in the top left corner, in crayon. She has one of my old pads of paper that she draws on with her colored pencils (crayons we are still working on drawing with them, instead of eating them). She gets very serious while drawing; leaning in, scribbling intensely and constantly demanding a fresh piece of paper. What a budding artist!

The finished mural behind the toilet at my husband's request so, "the men can have something to look at."

I thought I'd add a little one to enjoy on the way out of the room! Maybe I should add a little quote, "Don't forget to tweet out the light!"
Okay, maybe I'm not the best writer...

Birds on a Branch, Pt. 2

I was able to finish up the mural last night. It was relatively easy since it was one color and a simple design. I think to finish off the room, another small mural on the wall behind the toilet. Maybe two birds flying?

These are some of my supplies. I use a large fishing box to carry around my main supplies like pencils, erasers, paint can openers, acrylic paints, and paint brushes. I started out with a smaller box, but each new one keeps getting bigger! It's very convenient and much cheaper than an artist box.

I use a mix of latex and acrylic paints. I mostly use the latex for large sections of color, but it tends to be translucent so I usually mix it with some white acrylic. When I go get a batch mixed up at Home Depot, I always check out there "reject paint" area. There tends to be some pretty interesting colors that people didn't like, or returned.

For this mural, I had a small can of brown latex paint that was almost the color I wanted. I mixed in a little of my warmer browns and oranges.

You can see it still wasn't opaque enough, so I had to paint two coats. Luckily in this case, latex and acrylic dry quickly. Once I got through with the first coat, I was able to go back to the beginning and start the second coat right away.

The finished mural! I think it turned out pretty well. I have a couple sketches of fluttering birds, I'm thinking about putting those on the opposite wall. A nice outcome for a fast mural, don't ya think?

Birds on a Branch, Pt. 1

My neighbor is having a baby soon and she was looking for a way to decorate. She found some really nice decal murals, you know, peal and stick. They are actually really cute, whimsical and loose.

Since most of my walls are still blank, (I know, I know, I'm a muralist, but it was a brand-new house and I wanted to enjoy that!) I started looking to see if I could find one I like. Then I thought, heck, I should just paint it myself! So, I started my faux-decal "birds on a branch" mural in our guest bathroom.

No matter how simple the design is, it's always a good idea to sketch it out first. The idea in your head my look differently on paper.

Sometimes I use a projector, but most of the time I draw it by hand directly on to the wall. I find this works a little better because it allows flexibility in the spacing of the elements. A projector works well for me with very large, or detailed, or precise murals.

This mural is going to be a silhouette, just one color, so it should be a fairly fast paint. I probably just jinxed myself.