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.