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  The bland off white walls lent little to the imagination and were cluttered with stapled and taped outdated posters, art for the sake of taking up space and store bought pictures which lent nothing to the space.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. 

Take Your Cavities to the Theme Park

Thank you for keeping your arms and hands inside the ride until your dental visit comes to a complete stop. It's not a phrase your likely to hear anytime soon, but we're getting closer, with the debut of our second and third installments in the Dentistry for Kid's theme room makeovers.  As a children's space designer and prop maker dentist offices are right up my alley.  Oh, what fun....here we go.

The themed Adventurer room at Dentistry for Kids, by Embellishments Studio.

The Adventurer room is combination of Safari, Exploration and Jungle themes. Created to look like a den of a world class explorer, the room features decorative paint finishes, mural work, ornate crown molding, shutters and faux bamboo shelving. The room is visited by several birds, a friendly giraffe and a mischievous monkey. All of which were sculpted in our studio. Visitors will notice a treasure chest, dinosaur skull, genie lamp and a tiki, all great acquisitions of the explorer.

The jungle and exploration themed dental office, designed and created by Aaron Christensen.

The dentist, Dr. Dustin James is a big Disney theme park fan, so I designed every piece to have that retro 1955 feel as if Walt himself, oversaw the installation. While I don't possess the technology to add animatronics, I hope visitors get the sense that the animals are smiling and wanting to share their stories of adventure.

Whimsical props handcrafted at Embellishments Studio complete the safari themed dental operatory.

The other recently completed room is the Bayou themed room. In this particular operatory our options were very limited by the lack of wall space, so we turned that negative into a positive and utilized the ceiling spaces as much as possible.

A hound dog and his swamp friends, greet the patients at Dentistry for Kids.

This sliver of 3 ft wall was the only area where we could bring the theme down in dimensional form with our cajun shack, featuring Elvis the hound and his firefly eating friend, the frog. The rest of the room adorned with mural work or the dimensional props are up on the ceiling. To utilize the ceilings we carried branches across, resembling mangrove and cypress trees. An old wooden boat, hoisted up into the trees became the timeworn home to two baby raccoons and a visiting blue crab.

A mural and three dimensional props, enhance the bayou themed dentist office.

A waterlily carrying mother opposum, watches her baby swing over the shack, lit by the swag of lantern lights that add to the ambiance.

Mommy opposum carries a waterlily in the old tree.

Out of her mommies reach the baby possum swings into action, above the swamp shack created by Embellishments Studio.

These two rooms are in addition to the Farm room we created earlier this year. It features a farm fresh helping of sculpted animals, mural work and sloppy piggy fun.

The farm themed operatory at Dentistry for Kids, by Aaron Christensen

Hand sculpted chickens are one of the many props used in the barn like interior.

The bees are all abuzz, creating honey in the farm themed dental office treatment room.

A mallard duck, pours a stream of water to keep the baby pig slipping and sliding down the wall. These props were designed and created by Aaron Christensen

The farm room was a off-shoot from the garden theme we created in the office waiting room, where a train visits various theme areas in different parts of the room.

The waiting room at Dentistry for Kids features a train that circles the room high up on the wall. The train visits three themed vignettes. This is the garden portion.

An old west, desert themed area features a silly rattlesnake, cacti and some gold nuggets for discovery.

The boardwalk themed area offers sandy cliffs, with sea life, a visiting gull and a backdrop of a pier amusement park.

When I was a kid, I think counting the individual holes in the acoustical tile and try not to breath the odor of drilled teeth were the only things to do. And, I am sure my experience were similar for a lot of kids. It's great to know that a whole new generation of children, not only get to experience my work in the office, but that the entire space is dedicated to their fun and having a positive memory.

Since it's opening Dentistry for Kids has had an overwhelming amount of requests that they see adult patients. It must be there hope to rewrite their not-so-good childhood experience and relearn that dentistry can be fun. Needless to say, the office is now accepting adult patients for both its kids and teen offices.

If you have a pediatric or kids based business and need some visual magic, give me a call.  I'd love to help you EMBELLISH your space!

Best,

Aaron