Mural Project, day 1

 

I have just finished a mural on a powder room wall in old town Key West.  The house is a new build in a compound and has an existing cottage on the property. The interior was getting its final touches the days I was working.

 

I had met the owners and seen the house in progress in November when we first started to discuss the project.  Isn't that cottage cute? And a small plunge pool right off the living room, wonderful.

 

 

After our initial meeting the owners and I decided that the next step would be for them to decide on a motif based on images of my past work.  I set up a page for them on this blog (the remnants of it are still here, called for the Larsens) and uploaded all kinds of past paintings.  I knew that some of them wouldn't work, but there was also color to consider so I wanted them to see a lot of choices.  When they decided on motif and color scheme I did a sketch on

 22"x 30" 300lb watercolor paper.  They approved the sketch, my price and dates of work.  Next step was for me to select colors.  I painted the mural in the same brand of paint that they used for the interior, Benjamin Moore.  They choose a pebble finish for the walls, but I painted in flat.  I didn't want any texture or sheen.  Looking at color chips took way more time then I thought it would. I looked at colors before I painted the large sketch and selected colors I thought would go with the colors on the other walls in the room.  Then after the sketch was finished and approved I took the sketch with me to the paint store and selected the main colors. In the end I got some great colors and I ended up with some primary colors that really mixed well.

 

 

I taped the wall edges, put plastic on the floor and then installed a cardboard floor so I wasn't slipping around on plastic.  That was one of the best moves I made.

 

I rolled the sky color and then brushed a darker blue in the upper left hand corner to give the sky a shift in color from right to left.  Next I brushed in the background water, background sand and started in on the shadow areas.  That's when I realized I had made a mistake. I had planned to mix a lot of colors on sight because I wanted them all to work with the lighting that was in the room.  It is a very small and dark powder room.  I was working out of the quarts of paint and mixing colors from them was going to be a nightmare and huge mess.  I went to the restaurant supply store and got numerous squeeze bottles.  One for every major color I thought I would mix.

 

 

 I took all the paints back to my studio and spent the rest of the afternoon mixing colors.

 

 They were easy to work out of and transport.  It made day 2 of the mural project much easier.

 

See you day 2!