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Mulch Media Gallery » Making Of (Arianna's Mural)

(79 objects, created 11/2/2013)

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Album: This is a private album that is not visible to anonymous users Making Of (Arianna's Mural)

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Date:

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The sign that I am committed to this project: the work table is set up!. Already being filled with stuff, I have my collection of images and paint supplies. Very important to leave a little bit of room left for a cup of coffee.

The sign that I ...

During the painting process I discovered a trick that helped me work through some difficult parts. Whenever I found myself having to paint something that felt really challenging and stretched my skills outside of the comfort zone I would switch to painting with one of my smallest brushes. There was something about forcing me to make lots and lots of little marks that made the work look better. The little marks created more texture and forced me to make minute little details that can only be really seen up close. From a distance though they translated to highlights and shadows that overall made the painting look better. Changing brush sizes also made me change gears mentally; instead of trying to make the part fit into the whole painting perfectly, which became overwhelming, I just worked out that one little part. Once the fairy's face was working I could move on to making their body work. And then the wings, and then scenery around them, and so on.

During the paint...

One of my major concerns when paint the murals was to make the colors seem cohesive over the entire painting. I have the tendency to use color directly from the tube and that can make the images very jarring as one color clashes with another. A trick I picked up in art classes years ago is to use a base color that all other colors of the painting are mixed with. The color from the tubes are then treated as pigments, tinting the base color into various shades. With Madeline's mural I used two colors as a base, a beige and a turquoise. Arianna's mural used mostly a beige and just a little bit of a gray blue.

One of my major ...

For Madeline's mural I created contact sheets of images that I used as inspiration. It was time consuming to collect the images from the web, compile them into pages, and then print them out. I tried collecting the images into to Flickr and Picasa and that too was time consuming requiring downloading and uploading images. I finally figured out creating a Pinterest board and then viewing the images with my tablet was the best option.

For Madeline's m...

Covering the screen of the tablet with cling wrap worked to protect the screen from paint.

Covering the scr...

The plan is to mimic the arches in Madeline's room but not devote the whole wall to them. I decided that the perspective in this room is going to be from the boat floating out on the sea in Maddie's room. These windows are the portholes on the boat and we will be looking up at the castle. First step is to tape off the windows before painting in the background.

The plan is to m...

Unlike Madeline's mural, these images are all night themed. So I painted in the background sky shades of dark blue and black. I will add clouds on top of this, then later stars and other stuff that is still to be determined. The rest of the mural will look like map drawings on the wall. The overall theme is star charts so I plan to select specific constellations to put up

Unlike Madeline'...

Unlike Madeline's mural, these images are all night themed. So I painted in the background sky shades of dark blue and black. I will add clouds on top of this, then later stars and other stuff that is still to be determined. The rest of the mural will look like map drawings on the wall. The overall theme is star charts so I plan to select specific constellations to put up

Unlike Madeline'...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). More artistic license was taken with Cetus, Argo and Hydra. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). More artistic license was taken with Cetus, Argo and Hydra. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). More artistic license was taken with Cetus, Argo and Hydra. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). More artistic license was taken with Cetus, Argo and Hydra. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). More artistic license was taken with Cetus, Argo and Hydra. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). For next step I applied the feedback I was given by friends and I made some edits to the positioning and orientation of the images so that they flowed together. Because Virgo, Lupus, Leo, and Pavo (the peacock) were all so close together I felt they could be placed together so that they all interacted in some way. In my rendition of these constellations, Virgo is a Mother Earth like character watching over wolf and lion as they play. Instead of just adding a peacock to the pair of animals Virgo is wearing a gown of peacock feathers which also adds to the "of the Earth" feeling to her.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). For next step I applied the feedback I was given by friends and I made some edits to the positioning and orientation of the images so that they flowed together. Because Virgo, Lupus, Leo, and Pavo (the peacock) were all so close together I felt they could be placed together so that they all interacted in some way. In my rendition of these constellations, Virgo is a Mother Earth like character watching over wolf and lion as they play. Instead of just adding a peacock to the pair of animals Virgo is wearing a gown of peacock feathers which also adds to the "of the Earth" feeling to her.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Virgo, Lupus, Leo, Pavo, Cetus, Argo and Hydra. Sketches on paper are done, now it's time to put them on the wall. I used a couple of different sky map apps on my phone to place the constellations in the room. One of the apps allowed you to set a date and time in the future so I picked Arianna's due date and used that as my reference. A little fudging had to be done in order to get some of the constellations to fit up on the wall (the app showed their placement on the floor). For next step I applied the feedback I was given by friends and I made some edits to the positioning and orientation of the images so that they flowed together. Because Virgo, Lupus, Leo, and Pavo (the peacock) were all so close together I felt they could be placed together so that they all interacted in some way. In my rendition of these constellations, Virgo is a Mother Earth like character watching over wolf and lion as they play. Instead of just adding a peacock to the pair of animals Virgo is wearing a gown of peacock feathers which also adds to the "of the Earth" feeling to her.

Wall sketches of...

Wall sketches of Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, and Hercules. I was starting to get tired late that night so drawings got more sloppy. I'll have to go back and fix them. Some of the constellations have stories about how they relate to each other and I wanted the images to be like an illustration of those stories. I also made some changes to the traditional interpretation of how those images are represented in relation to the placement of the stars. For example, Ursa Minor is usually drawn as a bear with a very long tail. I've never understood that look and found if I drew the bear cub sitting with it's nose pointed up, it would match the shape of the stars and not have a ridiculous tail. I also positioned the bears much closer together than they appear in the night sky, but did make Draco's tail curve between them to represent that another constellation does in fact separate them. The story of Hercules' constellation is that he slayed Draco in order to take the golden apples. In the night sky, Hercules' is facing away from Draco. Again, I wanted these two characters to relate to each other so I flipped Hercules to be facing Draco so that it looked like they are interacting with each other.

Wall sketches of...

There! Now I am committed. The first paint on the walls commits Cetus the Whales to the mural.

There! Now I am ...

Got to work on Ari's mural this last weekend. I'll have to take new pictures in the daylight. The process is to paint over the chalk, wash the chalk off, then touch up the lines where the paint washed off too. This makes for lots of bouncing around while stuff dries. I also found I had to go back and forth between working high and low. Painting the high stuff is really hard on my neck so if I keep moving around my neck gets a needed break.

Got to work on A...

Got to work on Ari's mural this last weekend. I'll have to take new pictures in the daylight. The process is to paint over the chalk, wash the chalk off, then touch up the lines where the paint washed off too. This makes for lots of bouncing around while stuff dries. I also found I had to go back and forth between working high and low. Painting the high stuff is really hard on my neck so if I keep moving around my neck gets a needed break.

Got to work on A...

Got to work on Ari's mural this last weekend. I'll have to take new pictures in the daylight. The process is to paint over the chalk, wash the chalk off, then touch up the lines where the paint washed off too. This makes for lots of bouncing around while stuff dries. I also found I had to go back and forth between working high and low. Painting the high stuff is really hard on my neck so if I keep moving around my neck gets a needed break.

Got to work on A...

Got to work on Ari's mural this last weekend. I'll have to take new pictures in the daylight. The process is to paint over the chalk, wash the chalk off, then touch up the lines where the paint washed off too. This makes for lots of bouncing around while stuff dries. I also found I had to go back and forth between working high and low. Painting the high stuff is really hard on my neck so if I keep moving around my neck gets a needed break.

Got to work on A...

Started applying some color. My first attempt at adding color didn't work out very well. The orange color seemed waaaay too vibrant to me. The first paint on Virgo's dress also just didn't work out. I had everything with an even application of orange and blue and that made nothing stand out. I went back over the dress and made it much more blue and that made a huge difference. It also helped me decide how to approach color on the other characters too. Some are more blue or more orange to make them stand out from the other characters around them. I think that is working out.

Started applying...

Started applying some color. My first attempt at adding color didn't work out very well. The orange color seemed waaaay too vibrant to me. The first paint on Virgo's dress also just didn't work out. I had everything with an even application of orange and blue and that made nothing stand out. I went back over the dress and made it much more blue and that made a huge difference. It also helped me decide how to approach color on the other characters too. Some are more blue or more orange to make them stand out from the other characters around them. I think that is working out.

Started applying...

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