Mini Murals

I finished another little painting in Joey's room.  This one is from Lu and the Swamp Ghost, written by, strangely enough, James Carville.



I've done quite a few of these over the years.  Luckily, Joey's still excited to come home from school and see that I've finished another one. 





All of the mini murals I've done come from her favorite storybooks.

 

I scanned the pictures, played with them in photoshop to show as much of the basic outline as possible (I think I used the stamp effect), and then printed them up on overhead projector sheets.  You can cram quite a few of them on each one.



Then I projected them onto the wall and traced them in pencil.



You can barely see the penciled versions unless you're right up close.  That way, I can finish them when I have time. Though this technique may have given me way too much time, since I've been working on this project for like ever.  And there are still more pencil drawings than finished paintings.

Our favorite part is deciding where to put everybody.



Like this little guy who is in the corner, behind the door.



And this bunch who are all hanging from a long rope I painted in.

I use plain ol' acrylic craft paints, thinned with water, letting it dry between coats (sometimes speeding things with a blow dryer).  This allows me to more easily do shading on the sort of difficult pieces.  I traced quite a few of them at the end with a super thin, black marker.



The Wild Things' hair and scales were done mostly with the marker.  It gives you a lot more control that way.