Impromptu Wall Mural

I'm going to go ahead and blame Daisy for today's impromptu wall mural painting. Daisy is the almost 5 foot giraffe I acquired for free through a friend. She needed a good bath but I was willing to scrub her down just to have her for the empty corner of the nursery.

So there she stood, a tad lonely but definitely filling the corner nicely:

But this morning I got bit by a painting bug (and a little too much caffeine) and started to daydream. What happened next involved a whole bunch of paint mixing and a few hours of work that I'm thrilled with.

The best part is that's pretty much what I see from the comfy chair and foot stool in the opposite corner.

Have you ever wanted to do your own wall mural but didn't know where to start? Well, I've got some tips for you:

First, start by compiling some murals you like and decide on a style in your head. Although we have murals in every bedroom of our house now, I wanted this one to have a different feel than the other two so I went with a more modern shape. I found a few pictures online that provided good inspiration and went from there.

Next, using chalk, outline the shape you'd like to create. I didn't outline the leaves as I knew I could just freehand those once the tree was in place but drawing the chalk outline was really helpful. I didn't have brown chalk but I also suggest that you do your chalk outline in a color close to the paint you'll be using.

(I messed with the exposure on this photo a bit to make the chalk show up 

better so the green looks really weird)

Finally, paint within the lines. If you use a light chalk for a dark painting like I did here, you'll have to get close to the chalk without touching it. Once the first coat of paint was dry, I carefully wiped off the chalk using a rag then cleaned up the edges of the tree using a small angled paintbrush.

I didn't use a stencil for the leaves but it might have been easier. I had to put three coats of paint on to get a really strong green but I think I could have avoided that with a leaf stencil since I wouldn't have been so tentative with the paint. I'm happy with the end result though and was thrilled I could create this using paints left over from other projects.

Thank you for reading,
Julie

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