A Mural I Painted

Good morning! It rained all weekend and today is supposed to be nice and sunny and much warmer. Right now it's at 44 degrees! Still a wee bit chilly! Didn't do much over the weekend. Just hung around the house. Actually, I did clean quite a bit yesterday. Mopping, vacuuming, vacuuming the stairs....YUCK.......I hate that! Laundry is never caught up though!


I wanted to share with you some pictures of a mural I painted last year. I think this was before I started my blog so I didn't post them. I came across them this morning and thought......"I should post these since I mention painting on my blog..." The picture you see here is a before picture of a paint store. This is a children's area they set up in the back of the store. They wanted something more vibrant and colorful. The owner definitely wanted a beach scene, and wanted it to span across the two walls. Well I love love love painting murals so I was so excited to do this! His request was to keep a chalkboard area on the wall and I said, "no problem."
After many sketches we came up with a plan for palm trees, beach, sailboat, mountains, island, greenery, a dog, and kids playing in the sand. Well.......I don't do people!!! So I was really nervous!! I started with the sand and water, tree trunks, and a little bit of greenery...easy and fun! I decided to move the position of the chalkboard from the wall on the left to the wall on the right. You can see a tiny portion of white wall remaining where I planned on putting the chalkboard. Then I worked on some clouds; clouds are fun too!
Then I started on the island and mountain and the palm trees.
The following day, I started on the sun, the umbrella and chairs.
I left a space for the sailboat. Here is the space I left for the chalkboard....and added a tiny little island above that. Islands, water and sand are really easy to do. I kept the hard things for last......like people! LOL
Then came the doggie and the ball.


I am not thrilled with the color but I like that he is running through the grass. I think he came out too dark.

Everytime I tried to lighten him I wasn't happy with how he was turning out, so I left him alone. The only way to make him lighter at this point was to white him out and start over, and I didn't want to do that. I do like how my ball came out though. :) Then I added my little sailboat....isn't he cute?
LOL I put the palm trees on the island as well. I like making crooked palm trees. It drove my husband crazy but I told him "they can't be too straight!"
After that, I made the waves on the shoreline. That was fun! Sorry about the shiny spot in the middle! It was really hard to photograph after I put the topcoat on.
Here you see the canopy of the palm trees. Palm trees are really easy. And they take up a lot of space! LOL
Here is the end result. I can't show you a close up of the people...LOL. You can see them though on the left. LOL. The big black square is the chalkboard paint. It's a really cool thing, actually. Just paint it on like regular paint, let it dry, and then you can draw on it with regular chalk! Love it! Here is the wall on the left side.
Overall, I am happy with how it all came together. I am no Picasso and don't claim to be one. I got a lot of ideas from various websites. This too me 4 full days, if I remember correctly. Notice how the color of the floor matches the colors on the mural. That wasn't intentional. People have asked me if they replaced the floor after I painted, but that floor was already there. There was just an area rug covering it. And while I was painting, I had it covered with a dropcloth so I didn't notice that it was matching! LOL. I would paint another beach scene in the future but without people! LOL
















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