The Making Of A Mural

There is nothing quite like a fun splash of colour to lift the mood of a space! And there is no better way to do it, than to use our specially designed brightly colored, liquid Chroma Mural Paint! Let’s walk through the process of creating a mural from the design, wall preparation, application of paint and finishing touches.

Planning

So, first things first you will need a wall. This wall can be plaster, brick, concrete, wood or metal. Measure the height and width of the wall or the space in which you are planning to paint the mural. In a sketchbook record the dimensions and draw up a scaled outline of the wall. This particular wall was made from plaster and was 6 metres by 2.4 metres. To create the scaled drawing in a sketchbook, we divided measurements by 16 which resulted in the dimensions of 37.5cm x 15cm.

The next step is to sketch out the design. We find it’s always a good plan to start with at least three variations, then refine your ideas. Things to consider would be what colors or styles are in the room already, e.g.: furniture, art, and decorations and incorporate those colors/styles into the mural. Or consider what kind of mood you want to cultivate in space and choose an aligning color scheme. For this design, the focus was on bright, playful color with an emphasis on paint!

Wall Preparation

With the design finalised the next step is ensuring the chosen wall is ready to be painted on. Remove any nails, hooks, tape, or anything else from the wall. Then using mild detergent and water, wash the wall down to remove any dust, dirt and grime. Let dry, then using masking tape, cover the edges of the adjacent walls, ceiling and floor. Place a drop cloth or tarpaulin on the floor, then you are ready to roll!

Note: if the wall is plastic you will need to first apply an appropriate primer to the wall before painting. Check at your local hardware store for products and advice, and test prior to application.

Design Transfer

One of the trickiest things about painting murals is being able to ensure that your beautiful design keeps its proportions! We suggest using a basic grid to help keep those proportions as accurate as possible. Depending on the complexity of your design depends on how many sections the grid needs to have.

Draw a measured grid onto the scaled down design in the sketchbook. For ours we wanted big sections, so we created a 4(L) x 3(H) section grid. To do this we took the length of our scaled design 37.5cm and divided it by 4 which equalled 9.4cm. We then made a mark across the length of the design in 9.4cm increments. Then we took the height of the design 15cm and divided it by 3 resulting in 5cm increments.

To transfer the grid to the wall we multiplied each grid increment length by 16 (the number by which we first divided by to create the scaled drawing). We then marked out with pencil those grid increments on the top and bottom (Length) and left and right sides (Height) of the wall. We then drew straight lines between and there we have it – a spectacular scaled grid!

Now that both the drawing and the wall have the same ratio grid, it’s time to draw the design on the wall. Use the grid markers to keep you on track and pay special attention to what areas of your designs are at the intersections of the grid.

Painting

All the hard maths work is over – it’s time to get the colors out and really start to have fun! We started out using paint rollers to fill in the big areas of the design first. Because this amazing Mural Paint is so opaque and brightly colored it is fantastic for layering. Our advice is to not stress about leaving gaps and spaces for details, but build up to details in overlapping layers. If the design has straight edges use masking tape to help keep the edges clean.

Once the entire wall is covered in big, simplified areas of color it’s time to let that layer dry and start preparing for the details. When painting details we used a combination of Chroma Mural Paint Markers and paintbrushes.

When the details are finished it’s time to let the paint dry and clean up. To clean the Mural Paint from the brushes and paint rollers rinse with water. For a deeper clean use our Incredible Brush Cleaner!

Varnishing

Our magnificent Mural Paint is lightfast, bright and has excellent adhesion and coverage. To help protect the amazing new artwork, it’s best to apply a layer or two of varnish. This is especially important if the mural is in a high traffic area or may have liquids splashed or spilled onto it.