Magical Mural is Complete!

After stretching this project out over the summer, I finally finished! It was really fun to do and I'm glad I didn't edit anything out. With taking time off to raise my young BeaBug, this project was a great way to keep some creativity in my life. Enjoy the pictures!

Patchwork Meadow is a Great Place to Read

Okay, I know I said this last time, but it's HOT here! When I'm painting at night, I can't even open the windows until 9:30 or 10:00pm. On the other hand, I believe I'm sweating off tons of calories.

Here's my current paint palette. Since I'm painting more complex, smaller things, I need more colors!

I finished another wall in the mural. I didn't paint the characters before, so I had to come back and finish them. Some of them I had planned ahead, but some characters I improvised.

I'm going to move on the next wall, but I may come back and add another character or two.

More Work Done on the Magical World

Even for a designer and illustrator, the pull of summer can be strong enough to tear me away from my computer. That's my excuse for not posting for a while, but I HAVE been painting the magical world mural! It's getting a little more time-consuming because I'm getting into the details of the characters and smaller items. Here's a few photos of some working details.

My Birthday Present

Since I started creating more of presence online for my art business (murals, web design, illustrations, etc), I have found so many wonderful artists! It's awe-inspiring and intimidated at the same time, you know what I mean.

One of the artists I really liked is Stephanie Fizer, http://stephaniefizer.com. I think her style is adorable, and I'm in love with her color palettes. So, I sent my husband a link to her Etsy shop and told him that's what I wanted, if he was so inclined to buy me a present :)

And, he did! These are little girls as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Maybe for Christmas I'll ask for the Wizard of Oz illustrations...

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!

Magical World Mural - Clouds, Forests, and the Sun!

Here's a couple photos of my progress so far. I've got the major work for the clouds, hills and sun done. I'm currently working on the forest.

I thought things were moving along nicely, considering time restraints, but I realized when I start getting into the smaller details, it will actually take more time. This is where loosening up my style to be more simple and bold on mural details (since they are meant to be looked at from across the room) might come in handy.

Illustration Friday - Detective

Look closely - sometimes even the smallest voices have something important to say!

The Magical World Mural - Background Progress

Here's a quick post about the progress of BeaBug's magical world mural. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on, so I may have to thin it out as I start painting. Since it's a personal project (non-paying work), it's going at a slow, but steady pace. With an active 2-year-old,  I can only paint when she's sleeping, or occupied with Dad.

So far, I'm using latex paint, with large paint brushes and rollers. When I start getting into the details, it will be more acrylic and latex mixes.

I wanted the bottom of the wall to be simple since most of it will be covered by furniture.

I have one corner that is a evening scene, so I went with a purple-pink sky, like just after the sun goes down.

I blended it with a paint brush into the blue. The edge might be a little harsh in places, but it will be covered by either clouds or trees.

On to the next step! With the background painted, now I am drawing the scenes on the wall. I think it's going to be a combination of freehand and tracing using the projector.

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.