Murals Transform Bland Spaces in a School

Murals are a segment of my business that I truly enjoy creating.  While their popularity in residential spaces comes and goes like wallpaper, they're always the right fit for challenging spaces in kid oriented commercial and residential space.  I recently completed several new murals for a day school.  The bland off white walls lent little to the imagination and were cluttered with stapled and taped outdated posters, art for the sake of taking up space and store bought pictures which lent nothing to the space.

To date, I've painted five murals within the school.  I've varied each in style, composition and theme.  Hopefully they look executed by different artists, as I want the variety to be that akin to children's books.  No two are the same.

Here are three of the five murals.  I finally got around to taking photos with a real camera instead of the cell phone pictures that are oh so convenient.  I'll post the other two soon.

If you're curious, from my observations, murals are becoming popular in kids rooms once again.  Everyone has tried everything possible with decals, vinyl letters, chevron stripes and posters and the boredom is creating a resurgence in mural popularity.  So break out your paints, its time to lead the trend and not follow!

In the children's storytime stair area I created this magical forest with larger than life flora and fauna.  I rendered this mural in an animation cell style.  I wanted it to look like they're sitting within an animated movie.

To soften the hard inside corner I bridged it with a hand painted cutout of
a luna moth.  The frog is the first thing you see as you come down the hallway.  The kids love him.  He's about 2.5 feet tall.

The indoor play structure area was converted into a farm theme.  The maple wooden needed to be somewhat camouflaged.  I thought it would blend nicely with hay bales.  The owner's office door has been converted into a swinging barn door.

A faux tree trunk was added to the play structure to allow for the painting of a tree canopy on the mural sky.  Sadly, you can't see it in this picture.

In a second staired area, where the students watch videos and share, a storybook style forest was created.  Its soft calming colors lends itself to the low light room.

I sculpted a reliefed beehive, with bees to add a bit of whimsy to the space. 

Designing a Gender Neutral Nursery?

My wife and I utilized the book "how to choose the sex of your baby" with 100% success- twice! We wanted to know our babies "she wee" or "he wee" status before giving birth, but many parents do not. I wanted to know mostly because the nursery design was important. Imagine that...HA! We signed and passed on the book to friends, who did the same. I have no idea where the book ended up. I'd be curious if it's still in circulation and what the success rate is? How about you? Did nursery design play a part in your wanting to know your babies gender?

A gender neutral, but not neutral colored room I designed for a client.  She has since had a boy.