This is not a new mural but it has an interesting story. A few years after I painted it for my niece, my sister’s family moved away and sold the house, mural an all. A couple of days later I got a call from my former college roommate. He began to describe the mural to me over the phone. Turned out his sister-in-law had bought the house from my sister and he had recognized my work.
Almost twenty years later I got another call from my ol’ roommate. That family was moving but had deep regrets because they would have to leave the mural behind and after raising several kids in that room.
The finished mural has 49 monkeys (and a frog). Most were drawn to illustrate a variety of activities that the parents will be able to discuss with the child as he grows up.
There are too many to show much detail. If you’d like to see something up close contact me and let me know. There are also several that have special personal references for the parents or, in some cases, just for me. Hey, artist’s license.
With the line drawings in place I added all the solid colors. Once the colors were done, fine details, shading and highlights were added.
With the mural complete it was time for other folks to add the window treatments, bed coverings and so on and to wait for the baby to arrive. But that was out of my control.
After the planning was over I put the drawings on newsprint and toted them to Phoenix. Using the room sketches as a guide I taped the drawings on the wall and transfered the images using plain old carbon paper.
After some minor adjustments I made line drawings on the walls using an acrylic paint pen.
Assignment: Paint a mural of a bunch of monkeys doing a bunch of different things on three walls and entry way of a baby’s room. Since the walls were 1,100 miles away the planning needed to be good. There was lots of emailing going on. The room, it’s windows, furniture, etc. were measured and graphed at 1 foot units. Various sketches were made of the monkeys. After changes, computer illustrations were made to give an idea of what the room would look like.
The image on the left is an initial sketch. Many changes were made after that. The middle computer image was done from scanned drawings placed to scale on a wall and then skewed to give the appearance of the corner of the room. The third image superimposed the scanned drawings over photos of the actual room.
Every continent (except Antarctica) is displayed in this child’s room through a mural that is both entertaining and educational. Different countries are represented by characters who just happen to be frogs. Most have something to do with the culture or history of the region but some, like the biker toad with tongue flapping in the wind, are thrown in just for fun.
Other North American frogs include a Canadian Mountie, Alaskan Eskimo, Texas cowboy, Caribbean pirate, Mexican diver and Hawaiian surfer. Yes, I know Hawaii is not in North America but the good folks there are still Americans. Landmarks, with frog faces of course, include the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. Other whimsical characters include a hitch-hiking hobo, an airline pilot whose plane looks very similar to a Southwest Airlines jet and an extraterrestial. Way off in the distance is a Viking frog arriving a little late to discover the New World.
The fun continues around the room/world.
That’s me in the mid stages of painting a mural in a nursery room. The mural covers three full walls. You can see part of one wall which has a desert theme, sort of. Each wall works into the next one. The castle wraps around the three sides of the column.
Acrylic and latex paints. Nursery Room, 9′ ceilings
