Plant Eaters Only!

A little friend of mine LOVES dinosaurs. He's 3-years-old and he not only does he know the names of the dinosaurs, he can pronounce them!

He prefers plant eaters (he knows their called herbivores). And dark colors. He told me that many times while I painted his mural. He was a very demanding client, but you got to give him credit for knowing exactly what he wanted!

Since my workload at home increase by 200%, I needed this mural to be simple and quick. So, I came up with the idea of colorful silhouettes. They need to be realistic, yet not too scary. So, I made the eyes round to personify them a little.

Thanks to his Grandma for helping me paint these beasts. It was nice to be paint again, even it was only for a day.

Scary Dinosaurs on the Wall!

The first round of dinosaur sketches for this little 3-year-old boy were just not scary enough. I was going for cute dinos, but I guess I underestimated the bravery of this little boy!

He wanted a bunch of different dinosaurs, so his parents hired me to paint 4 vignette scenes around his room. I don't know much about dinosaurs beyond "Land of the Lost", so I had to find some good references.

He has a pretty big room, so the T-Rex almost takes up a whole wall. It IS one of the biggest dinosaurs!

His mom told him he had to stay out of the room, but he couldn't help himself from coming in and checking on my progress, telling me about dinosaurs. His knowledge was impressive!

It's good to know I made a dinosaur expert happy.

Skaters & Bikers: An Xtreme Mural

Most of the time I get murals requests for flowers, animals, a little fantasy, stuff like that. This time I got a call from a mom of two tween boys that shared a big bedroom. She said one liked to skateboard and the other like to ride dirt bikes. She was looking for a mural to incorporate both of those sports, plus a graffiti style theme.

I hadn't really done anything like that before, especially graffiti. But, I saw it as a challenge. I did alot of research looking at graffiti art, competitions, fonts (there are tons of graffiti style fonts!), not to mention finding good references to develop my skaters and biker dudes.

I started with my background. Looking at graffiti, I never really thought about it, but a background really holds it all together on a chaotic wall. I really liked the sharp shapes, solid colors and hard lines.

When it came to the boys names, I used my projector to make sure I got the shape of the graffiti type correct. Which is ironic because the beauty of graffiti art is that it's loose, immediate, and freehand. But, since I didn't have alot of practice, I wanted to make sure I got it right!

It actually turned out to be tons of fun to create. Like any piece of art you work on, there are moments when you think you really messed it up, but I'm pleased with how it turned out and more importantly, the boys loved it!