I would like to paint a mural on one dining room wall. Has anyone ever done it?
Could I trace out the design using a projector? Or are there any “paint by numbers” stencil type things that I could use?
I’ve painted murals using both the projector method (which was the best) and the scaling-up using squares method. I don’t know about stencils for a whole wall, but look up the original meaning of “cartoon”
I did a mural at my high school, they were offering segments of wall to students to embelish.
I got a section in the caffeteria that included the water fountain so I decided to do something water based. I went with a chinese scene, painted in the chinese style, I filled the niche with a mountain and waterfall scene, and had a flying red dragon fighting a phoenix on the mountaintop.
You can use a projector to make your own paint by numbers sort of art, or find commercially made stencils, or freehand it as you want. It is your project after all =)
The stencils tend to be fairly small, usually for borders and small embellishments, but I would be willing to bet that you could project a stencil somehow to use.
Draw your idea out to scale on a piece of paper, the piece of paper being the size of the wall but in inches instead of feet (8ft x 10ft wall = 8inches x 10inches paper) then draw a 1inch x 1inch grid over it. Draw the grid in a larger size on the wall (e.g. 1ft x 1ft). Copy what is in each square on the paper on the wall, square by square until you have included all the squares. Adjust your drawing where necessary (where the squares meet, for example, or the way a curve curves). Paint away.
If you don’t have drawing ability you could probably piece together your small, original drawing by using photographs.
I wouldn’t bother with stencils unless the stenciled look is something you are going for. It’s a distinctive style.
Most important–have fun!!!
We did pretty much that, using a chalk snapper thingy to draw the grid on the building.
The artists hang out in Cafe Society, so I’ll move this thither.
twickster, MPSIMS mod
I did an “op art” mural once. I planned it out on paper first (this was before computers), then just did a lot of measuring and marking on the wall.
If you use a chalk line, don’t use the blue or red-they bleed through paint. I have two dedicated chalk lines for doing this. One with powdered charcoal and one with baby powder for use on dark surfaces.
If you decide to go with the projector route, be very careful about moving it. It’s best to budget enough time to do all the drawing at one go.
Oh, and draw with chalk or vine charcoal-it’s easier to erase.
I have. I have used both the projection and grid method. Personally I prefer the grid method as I think it’s more accurate, but if you are not worried about parrallax or if your draftsmanship isn’t what it could be the projectors are pretty good.
I have, once. I did a herd of horses on the wall of my veterinarian’s office. I just hand drew them on and painted with acrylics. It was very fun to do!
I have been contemplating a mural of King Kong in my bathroom. That may sound weird but let me 'splain. My boyfriend is obsessed with the giant ape, he’s always drawing him. I was taking down wallpaper in the bathroom and he asked if he could draw on the wall. I said go ahead because I was going to have to patch the plaster and prime the wall well before I could repaint anyway. So he drew Kong climbing up a cliff face. It’s actually not a huge mural, it’s just in one corner but I was thinking of keeping it and letting him paint it in and then painting the rest of the scenery on the wall, maybe with some of the trees closer in perspective. Granted it could hurt my resale value but I’m not planning on moving anytime soon and there’s more stuff wrong with this place that will have more affect on the price than a King Kong in the bathroom.
Don’t forget to explore the underutilized medium of Post-it notes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK8X0UX9vyQ
I once saw a room on Trading Spaces done in Tiffany blue with a “Blue Willow” (Chinese pattern) done in white on one wall. They used a projector and it turned out amazing.
I’ve never done an internal mural. I was hired to do some murals at a school, once. They had set aside three months for three murals on external walls, and I ended up doing about twenty in six weeks, covering up almost all available space on every building.
I just drew straight onto the wall, silly little cartoon character friezes, with less than perfect accuracy, so that probably isn’t a good example. They looked fun and colourful, though.
This was 15 years ago. I wonder if any are still there.
Most projectors I’ve worked with allow you to adjust the “tilt” settings to avoid any parallax effects.
I’ve used those as well however depending on your subject matter (such as buildings for example) you still have to eyeball the correction or do a lot of correcting on the wall. In that case it can be easier to just use the grid method from the get-go.
But since the OP hasn’t done one, my assumption was that they probably did not have access to the fancy-schmancy models. But if they do it is a good alternative assuming that the finished product is not too big.
ETA: Also, for someone not familiar with such things the grid is a lot safer. Have you ever tried to realign a projection after accidentally bumping the projector? Yikes.
Definitely if you’re using a projector, include marks in all four corners that you trace on the wall first. That way, if you do get bumped or have to turn it off, you’ve got an easy way to realign the marks.
I haven’t done murals, but I have done drops and flats for theatre, and I definitely prefer the grid method. I only did a projector method once, for a sign, and it was too much trouble for me to want to do it again.