Wow! What an honor it was to be commissioned to paint one of my floral patterns on the wall of a friend’s entryway. It was such an exciting and terrifying project. I was both intimidated and excited to jump right in. It is one thing to paint a painting on paper canvases that can moved around and put up and taken down, but it is a whole new endeavour to permanently paint upon someone’s walls.
Luckily the clients had seen a painting of mine that they really connected with, so I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. This was a huge comfort because I was going to be painting something I was familiar with and using colors that I was comfortable with. The aspect I struggled with the most was trying to keep a sense of spontaneity that happens when I paint on paper. I don’t do any pre-planning as I love the process of just letting things flow and seeing what happens. I don’t mind making mistakes when painting on paper as it pushes me to come up with creative solutions that bring the painting to a place I don’t believe I would get to if I planned everything out. You don’t plan for accidents. I didn’t feel confident taking this free flowing process to the client’s walls, so I did take the time to plan and draw out the composition. I am very happy with the final result and I do feel that despite the planning, the mural does still emit a sense of spontaneity.
Here are some pictures of the process and the final result with their beautiful Great Dane for scale.
