preliminary sketches

In as long as I have been honing my mural skills, I've long had a debate with myself about how to present or even render preliminary sketches. I've done paintings, pencil sketches, colored pencil, and even watercolor pencil. I've come to the conclusion that for me, the colored pencils work just fine.
For our sweet woodland nursery, we've chosen the paint color and are ready to execute the mural. This particular design is broken up into several small murals at the baseboard around the room. As I do with all my murals, I sketched a small example in colored pencil for the client's approval. If I have a client who needs more help visualizing the finshed product I will paint a small example on canvas for an additional fee. I do direct my clients to my website to have them look at previous work to get an idea of what I am capable of. This usually takes care of any apprehension that may arise from the pencil sketches. Here is the preliminary drawing and the mural as finished today. I'll be adding flowers and butterflies in a couple days.

These cute little racoons turned out pretty much like the drawing, but better. I think it is up to the individual artist to choose how the preliminary drawings are done. Of course, each client is different and some need a little extra visual help.

choosing a paint color for a child's room

In getting ready for this sweet little nursery mural, the homeowner is painting the room themselves which is something I almost always have them do. It is pretty common for a homeowner to choose a color for the room, paint it, then commission me to paint a mural on top of their chosen paint color. Every once in a while I run into the issue of my client being unhappy with the color of paint they decided upon for the base.

I always like to tell my client's that there is no need to panic when you've painted a color that you don't particularly like. It is only paint after all and as I have discussed with my favorite helper (my dad) there isn't a mistake that can't be fixed. Aside from extra labor to paint over the room again, paint is quite inexpensive and in the long run it is better to change the color than to live with one you aren't happy with, especially if you are investing in a lovely mural to go over it.

With this particular room, the new mom and grandmom chose a nice neutral yellow color. They were very diligent in their color choosing, getting different samples and painting them on foam core, checking them in the room in different spots. This is a fine way of doing it, however, I always tell people first lets look at what fabrics you are using for the bedding, chairs, curtains etc. Most new moms have chosen a bedding set as soon as they found out they were carrying their little bundle of joy. When my client asked me to come and tell me what I think of the color and that she isn't sure about it, I was happy to oblige. the room was only just painted around the closet and apparently Grandmom stopped there because this color wasn't turning out quite as expected. My first question to my client was "can I see the bedding"?
It turns out that they hadn't even thought about that. It's a common mistake and unless you've painted a hundred rooms (or even a couple) and made those mistakes yourself, you won't know. We chose a new yellow today from the bedding and went from lemony to buttery, sounds like a small difference, but it makes a big change. We will be starting off fresh on Tuesday with our woodland nursery. I'll be giving a play by play of this one, stay tuned.