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Written by Paula Clayton
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:26 |
Check it out.
The railing had been white. Mid-job request / add-on. Debby painted the railing, then the new carpet & those metal things that hold the carpet back to the stairs arrived the next day. Hah! They matched, Doo-de-doo-doo, dooo-de-doo-doo. Twilight Zone Artiste! |
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Written by Paula Clayton
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:10 |
Hello!
We seem to be on a tree run, of late. Which is kind of fun, they all end up with different moods in the painting and colors. This lot are in Lake Bluff, Hyde Park, Wilmette, and (for us) local: Evanston, Illinois.
I had posted a few months ago about the nurseries - so a bit of catch-up, too, in getting these pics up.
 ... detail --> 
A four-year old's room, and she just has a new baby sister who she loves! So we had come in pre-baby (a few months ago) to paint her new room (since the new baby has her old room), and Vicky called us back to ask if we could add a couple more fairies. Little sister, big sister. Cute, eh?
While we were there, we also flowered-up a cool play treehouse they'd bought at Wishes (http://www.wishestoywonderland.com/) (we painted Wishes' murals) (blog earlier here, we like them lots and lots).
 
Its neat! Its got winches and different levels & little places to hide stuff & wee buckets & furniture!
The treehouse is a cool place for fairies to come and have tea and play .... soooooo ... we remembered it with the next tree-room we did, when in the #1 brainstorming session we all decided we needed a teahouse,
 
... and there is a fairy in there sorting out the flower trimmings, with more zooming in along the wall, bringing more flowers.
The other family focused room of the tree mural painting epidemic was in Hyde Park. They figured that since the whole family spends a lot of together time in the living room ... it should be a cool place for everyone. They'd seen some of our trees on the website, here (yippee - happy website happenings!) and gave us a call.
The built-in bookshelf was a nice green to work in with the leaves, and all that real wood trim gave us some good rich colors to play off ...
 
Monkey - family favorite ... kids request,
 
And bunnies.
Thats the cool thing with murals, too - you can add your personal happy points to the scene. Everyone can slip in a little something that will make them smile every time they see it. It's your home, your walls, and its just paint we're using. So what do you want to see on your walls?
And guess what?
Just because its trees & nature stuff doesn't mean it has to look completely like a landscape scene or even keep in tree-realistic colors. We just painted a quick bathroom yesterday, and the colors took a sidestep into a more sophisticated realm.
The original color that this family had painted their bathroom was a slightly darker, cooler grey. They wanted to lighten, warm it up a bit, be a bit different, and throw in some purple. Most of this room is in a kind of dappled brushstroke, picking up the different tones of greys, creams & purples. It resolves into trees in 2 corners, only, with a bit of foliage at ground level, too.
All in all its pretty soft, relaxing, and warm. It picks up the colors from the stone floor, does the nature thing, beats a solid color for visitor-interest, but stays calm and sophisticate while its at it. We're happy! (Our client people are happy too - this is good!)
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Written by Paula Clayton
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Friday, 09 October 2009 13:10 |
The Time Has Come
Another vehicle falls to the paintbrush.
It starts out with a few photos, then a nice trick in Photoshop that turns them into black & white outline drawings. Now we have pictures like a coloring book ... print a few off and come up with some ideas.
 
Once the ideas have solidified its time to get down to business. The neighbors laugh & offer their cars as the next in line - as it looks like we're just scrubbing and cleaning, right? But it turns out that, no, they don't want theirs done with 400 grit sandpaper .. so we just stick to this one.
All nicely prepped & the odd bits of rust or over-zealous sanding get hit with some spot-priming. Add a beautiful skirt of rosin paper, some high density plastic, and a few hours of rather tedious taping, and we're ready to do the fun stuff.
Looks like a hovercraft, eh?
Geek Moment:
The paint is Autoair, by Createx. They're the people who make the regular airbrush paints ... but this stuff is special. It's waterbased, but with only that slight scuffing of the 400 grit paper its willing to adhere like you wouldn't believe. We know this to be true as that first night the moisture in the air was enough to keep the paint from drying properly. The early morning dew collected, ran, and when we wiped it off the paint came with it. Not just the Autoair, but everything. All the way down to bare metal. Like a paint stripper! And this is through the factory-applied urethane and original paint. Wow! (We weren't very happy at the time - but it was impressive).
So the adhesion is so good that it bonded with absolutely everything on top of the metal & took it all with it when it wiped off. Serious stuff.
Back To The Story:
So here's the first coat, sprayed night sky to day sky.
 
Most of the stars came later, with the airbrush.
Then the tree - and climb up onto the roof ... because Nancy says that the people in condos need to be able to look out their windows and see pretty rooftops, which is good advertising.
Next came the waterfall and background trees, and the animals by the driver's door. Lions & Tigers & Bears oh my. Only one of each - but hopefully some people get a giggle. I tried out writing "oh my" coming from the bear, but it looked kind of stupid so nixed that one.
 
Then the dragon, then give the dragon a nice comfy pot of gold to sit on. Everyone needs a pot of gold, right? So if you need one give us a call & we'll come create a shiny luscious pile to whatever dimensions you'd like. Not legal tender, but a happy thought nonetheless.
Back to the nightsky side.
We thought we needed a big beautiful bunch of hibiscus here. In an online image-hunt I tangented off to a blog: http://seventhchords.blogspot.com/ and found a nice pic Gowri Mohanakrishnan had posted of a bowl of flowers (inc hibiscus). I thought what the heck - emailed her to ask if OK to use the pic. OK! Great - and though we've ended up with a pastiche of different hibiscus, there's hint-of-Ruby Tuesday in there. I liked the small leaves & flowers mixed in. Makes for a frothy spill of flowers.
 
There's still more to be done.
Wwwweeee-hooo!
We clear-coated the minivan already - but all we need to do is scuff the panels we want to work on more, paint & clear coat again. At least everything is safely sealed in now, edges cleaned up, looks happily impressive & driveable.
The yet-to-do is: add a night scene, probably suburban houses with windows lit, and some fairies. I'd like to add some moon flowers behind the dragon's tale. They've always seemed magical to me. Maybe some bubbles. Bubbles are great in a bathroom, by the way. If we can go straight on top of your existing paint it will only take a day, which costs around $400.
Back To The Story:
Sheesh. Tangents 'R' Us.
So a bit more painting on the minivan, yet. Clearcoat those panels. Then order some vinyl lettering (our favorite people for this: Signs Now on Dempster: www.signsnow.com, 3741 W. Dempster Street, Skokie, IL 60076, (847) 673-5151). Talk to Lise) and voila - all shall be good!
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Written by Debby Spertus & Paula Clayton
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Tuesday, 08 September 2009 15:20 |
Have your murals painted on a special cloth with a repositionable backing and you can take your mural with you when you move.
The dictionary definition of a mural is: a painting or other work of art executed directly on a wall. While most of our murals are site specific and painted directly on the wall, there are times when that might not be the best option.
Here is a solution that is quite simple. We can paint it on Roc-lon cloth. Roc-lon is the fabric that is used for blackout shades. It is very durable, doesn’t fray when cut, and has a very fine weave. It can be installed with wallpaper paste, but easier still, is our nifty hot wax device. We roll a thin layer of adhesive wax on the back and then it works like a giant sticky note. We bring the mural to your house already waxed, and apply it directly on the wall.
We've put up some these pics before, with the Sidewalk Sale posting, so apologies for the double-up. But they're the same stuff.
What if you suspect that you may change your mind & decide that you would prefer your mural in the Living Room instead of the Dining Room? Or a shop display that may move as you periodically re-arrange. You may know that you will be moving in a couple of years, yet don’t want to live with bare walls until then. So this way you can take the mural with you. Or you have a business that can’t be closed for 4 days, but you’d love 4 window views & fake patio. We can come in and put up your windows in an afternoon, if they are pre-painted.
Another great idea is to do a faux finish directly on the wall, then do a feature or detail piece on the Roc-lon. This way you get an integrated feel - for example; painting faux stone on the walls directly, then doing a big stone arch with a Tuscan scene on the Roc-lon cloth. Then you’ve kept your higher-priced painting (the mural feature) as a to-go option. If you move - you only have to get the new room re-painted with the faux stone. You can feel good that you got what you wanted, saved money, and took advantage of a clever trick, to boot!
Debby is posing here (made a good pic for the Northshore magazine ad) ... the jungle scene is one of the Sidewalk Sale pieces. We just put it up there for the picture. But that's another place that it is a lot easier to not paint directly on the wall.
  
Stairwell. No backing up to look at how the painting is going. And an awkward hot space to be working in.
We do a variation of the finish-and-prepainted idea with Kid Snips, when we re-do their salons. They don’t want to be closed any longer than necessary. They want to cut hair! Sell toys! So we pre-paint the zap-pow shapes on wallpaper, zoom in when given the go-ahead, strie the walls, paper up the shapes, add shadows, paint a few shapes down low (no pre-painted down low, small fingers find edges way too amusing to pick at), and zoom out again. This way we cut a 2 week job down to 4 days, with only 2 and 1/2 days closed-time.
 
The wallpaper thing is removable, not movable - but that pre-painting business is some of the same idea. And if you own a business, especially anything with a storefront, we know you don’t want your doors closed any longer than necessary.
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