Operation "Nighty Night"

Happy weekend everyone!

Today I'm taking a day off, but tomorrow I'll start a new mural project. More about that later. For now though, let me catch you up on what I did LAST weekend!

My client for my last project was significantly shorter and cuter than most. This first picture is our initial consultation and brainstorm. It involved lots of mention of rainbows and fairies. Let me give you the backstory: 

Cutie sees house fire...... gets scared of fires...... associates smoke alarm in her room with fire and "scary"...... fear-of-fire fueled insomnia and general bad-dreaminess occurs...... parents need solution!

So her parents had her sign an agreement that if she could have good sleeping behavior for each day leading up to Chanukah, they would hire me to come paint her ceiling as a Chanukah present! My job was to turn that general smoke alarm area into a happy thing to look at, rather than scary. Hence, "Operation Nighty Night" was born. I die from cute. 

What I really appreciated about this job, was that the parents let their daughter make the decisions about her ceiling mural. It was all about what was going to help her sleep, and make her room a safe and happy place to be in. Kids have beautifully wild and uninhibited imaginations. When adults can recognize and embrace that, rather than stifle it, amazing adult/child collaborations can happen. Take a look at how we made ours:

Client Meeting! The kiddo and I talking over her ideas and making a concept sketch!

Concept sketch presented to me: That bullseye to the lower right? The smoke detector - soon to be surrounded in rainbow!

My interpretation of her sketch: A little photoshop and it's ready to present back to my client! She approves. 

Going for it! Ouch, my neck. 

End result!

Happy client right there. Happy Muralist too :)

We even got her into the action: Brother, sister, and their friend all got to paint the silver raindrops!

That was probably the cutest thing to happen to Talking Walls Murals, maybe ever. :)

Fantastical Forest Nursery Mural... D.O.N.E!

Hi All,

I just posted a humungous album of photos to my Talking Walls facebook page, which you can see here. I tried to arrange the album so it's like you're spinning around in the room :) I wish I'd taken a video doing that now, dang it! Anyway, onto pictures :) Ooh actually, a very cute fact about this mural first:

The couple who commissioned this had the cutest idea ever. They just had their baby boy a couple weeks ago, and they want to someday use this mural during their bedtime stories! They said they'll make up stories around the animals, people and scenery, and then when he's old enough, they'll have him write up his own. ISN'T THAT THE CUTEST, EVER??  I love that. I love when murals can become useful tools in some way, more than just looking pretty. I've always said that murals are amazing tools - they can educate, inspire, change minds and even society! If you want proof, just google Diego Rivera. :) Anyway, on to the pictures. If you've been reading all the posts about this project, thanks for keeping up with this saga! Glad to be able to show you it all finished.