Cuter Electrical Panels!

Hey everyone!

Hope you guys are out enjoying the weekend as much as I have been! Friday was a full day of painting, and yesterday was a full day of fun. I am so so so so happy to work 4 days a week at my J.O.B. and one day a week mural-ing. My new schedule has really been helping me to divide my time between the 9-5, the hustle, and the rest of my life and the people I fill it with. Just feeling very very grateful. *end gushing*

Anyway, this is what I did on Friday: covered two boring grey metal electrical panels on the outside of an apartment building, with flowers and cuteness. It's just such a pure and simple happiness to be able to brighten up these teeny tiny corners of the world and make them a little more sparkly. I like art that "MEANS and SAYS SOMETHING", but I also very much enjoy making art that is simply about making things prettier.

A couple weeks go I started this project - all I had done was the big pink flower on the left, and started the roses. Then on Friday, made a push to finish the rest of that whole panel, plus the other one in the last picture. I realize I paint fast. Clients remark about that a lot. I have to say though, that it's definitely not necessarily a good thing. Working a tiny bit slower is actually one of my current professional goals - in painting murals, and in my day job as a graphic designer. I can be impatient. I want to see the results, and quickly. I want to see the images I have in my mind come alive on a wall (or electric panel, ha!). I also want to get to my favorite part of the painting process sooner (everything that happens after the first layers of paint are already down). But I'm trying this new thing where I take more time to think about what I'm doing. Who knows, maybe it's the NOT thinking that will be better after all, but we shall see. #goals Ok, less ramble, more pictures. Here's what I made:

 

Happy weekend everyone! 

<3 corie="" p="">

Spring Garden Porch Banner Mural

Here it is, the 40-foot banner mural I've been working on for the last few weeks! :)  The clients who commissioned this piece have a second story balcony running along the entire length of their house.  This banner was made to be hung over the railing on special occasions, for when guests come over, or just on sunny Spring days :)  The idea was to have a mural that could go up when they were in the mood to celebrate, for whatever reason.  The client and his partner love to garden, and mentioned Zinnias and Nasturtium flowers....and they are NOT afraid of bright color.  Perfect for me!  Even with a crazy month, I was able to pull this one off in time for them to use it to welcome guests to their big upcoming potluck :) It was a tight deadline, but I took the challenge, and feel good that with some strategic planning, was able to pull it off. 

I had a lot of fun painting this one.  This opens up a lot of possibilities for me and clients, too.  It makes for a mural that people can take down and put up as they please, if they're not ready for the commitment of a mural directly on the wall, or if they want to have a mural on an area that would be un-paintable.  It also opens up the possibility for me to work with clients out of my local area.  As long as I can get the measurements and concept ideas, we can work together over a distance!

I can think of no mural more Spring-appropriate than this one, and it was a nice way to ring in the season :)

Murals Soon To Be

Well, happy to report that I'm getting pretty freaking crazy busy with work for the near future!  I'll be teaching on the weekdays, mural-ing in the afternoon and weekends, and trying to squeeze in some other life stuff in between.  This is the life of an artist trying to make it their full-time job: trying to perfect the art of "The Hustle".   It's piecing together things to make up a steady job.... for me that means teaching contracts, mural and illustration commissions, and random odd jobs make a living. Making your dreams come true is hard work! 

Anyway, just thought I would share with you a bit of the design process I go through for mural commissions.  It starts with a discussion with the client.... me picking their brains for anything that will translate into images. It's like a game trying to piece together what's in someone else's brain and come up with an image for it.  For the beach house mural below, the clients had a hard time nailing down a style or direction they might want, for fear of "disrupting my creative process" with too many requirements.  I did know they wanted it "beach-y", and they liked pelicans and blue herons. So I did this:

Design #1 was waaaaay "out there". I kinda figured it would be too much, but you never know what people will respond to. 

This one was less crazy, but still bright and somewhat whimsical, not super realistic.

And this one was the most realistic.  This is what the clients chose.  The cool part of this one though, is that it will include bits of actual shells and rocks and things, glued onto the painted "beach" on the wall.  It will have a nice 3-d effect that I'm pretty excited about. 

They wanted the pelican more "stout" looking, so this was the final design they settled on.

I like to super-impose my sketches (or sometimes just photoshop collages) onto pictures of the clients' actual wall spaces. This way they can see what it will look like. The next mural I'm planning, is a big 40' banner for a client's fenced in porch.  I knew they liked Zinnias, and that they wanted it bright and celebratory.  Here's the progression of their designs:

The final design: add nasturtiums, pond background, keep the hummingbird. 

I'm SOOOO excited to paint this one.  This is right up my alley, and is something that I would paint for myself... if I had a 40' porch railing that needed a banner mural ;)

I'll keep you updated!

Corie