Search the gallerySearch the gallery

Log In

Media Gallery

Mulch Media Gallery » Arianna's Room Mural Complete

    

Download media objects

Select the objects to download. If you select an album, all items in the album are included. A ZIP file will be created that contains your objects. If you choose a large number of items, be patient while the ZIP file is built.

Select media size:

I started working on her room back in October of 2011 with texture painting all of the walls and adding new paint to the trim. In November of 2011 I painted the arches of night sky and then the project sat, and sat, and sat until January 2013. Granted, was 6+ months pregnant and Arianna was born during that gap. After that it only took me about five months of working on the room off and on. It was definitely much harder to work around two kids than one.

I started working on her room back in October of 2011 with texture painting all of the walls and adding new paint to the trim. In November of 2011 I painted the arches of night sky and then the project sat, and sat, and sat until January 2013. Granted, was 6+ months pregnant and Arianna was born during that gap. After that it only took me about five months of working on the room off and on. It was definitely much harder to work around two kids than one.

I started working on her room back in October of 2011 with texture painting all of the walls and adding new paint to the trim. In November of 2011 I painted the arches of night sky and then the project sat, and sat, and sat until January 2013. Granted, was 6+ months pregnant and Arianna was born during that gap. After that it only took me about five months of working on the room off and on. It was definitely much harder to work around two kids than one.

I started working on her room back in October of 2011 with texture painting all of the walls and adding new paint to the trim. In November of 2011 I painted the arches of night sky and then the project sat, and sat, and sat until January 2013. Granted, was 6+ months pregnant and Arianna was born during that gap. After that it only took me about five months of working on the room off and on. It was definitely much harder to work around two kids than one.

Busy weekend getting stuff done! Arianna has been moved into her bedroom and I think she likes it. She slept there last night and seemed to do OK. She did cry out a few times but resettled easily. Madeline was a super awesome builder girl and helped me put the shelves together for Ari's toys. Both girls had a blast pulling out and putting away all of the toys. We still have little projects to finish up in there like power outlet covers and curtains. The murals look even better with furniture in the room.

I started working on her room back in October of 2011 with texture painting all of the walls and adding new paint to the trim. In November of 2011 I painted the arches of night sky and then the project sat, and sat, and sat until January 2013. Granted, was 6+ months pregnant and Arianna was born during that gap. After that it only took me about five months of working on the room off and on. It was definitely much harder to work around two kids than one.

Constellation Hercules. All the stars are glowing tonight! All the stars are painted with two coats of glow in the dark paint. They glow great once your eyes adjust to the dark. Tulip Glow in the Dark fabric paint is the best glowing stuff I have found so far. The Rustoleum stuff didn't work well at all.

Constellation Virgo. All the stars are glowing tonight! All the stars are painted with two coats of glow in the dark paint. They glow great once your eyes adjust to the dark. Tulip Glow in the Dark fabric paint is the best glowing stuff I have found so far. The Rustoleum stuff didn't work well at all.

Constellation Virgo. (A little more light added to the room to show Virgo better) All the stars are painted with two coats of glow in the dark paint. They glow great once your eyes adjust to the dark. Tulip Glow in the Dark fabric paint is the best glowing stuff I have found so far. The Rustoleum stuff didn't work well at all.

Constellations of Argo, Monoceros and Hydra. More artistic license was taken with Argo and Hydra. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Constellations of Cetus, Orion, Taurus, and Aries (center medallion). More artistic license was taken with Cetus. While doing research I had seen an old star map where the sea monster Cetus was drawn as a whale. As this mural is for a baby's room, I didn't want scary, monsters images on the walls so the interpretation of a whale was perfect. The castle in Arianna's room is the opposite side of the castle in Madeline's room. I used tracing paper and sketched Maddie's castle, flipped the paper and then added the sketch to the wall in Ari's room. I then made up what the rest of the castle should look like.

Constellations of Pisces, Pegasus, Taurus, and Aries (center medallion). There are a few others constellations added in there but are not represented with additional artistic renderings. Brian Froud is a huge inspiration for my fairy paintings. All of the fae have been inspired from his sketches and I've tried to add little touches that make them mine. Like in Madeline's room I wanted a touch of music added to the mural. In the window the little guy is playing a fae guitar and the girl fairy is dancing to his music. Because it is night time they needed a little lamp to illuminate their dalliance. Girl Fairy's dress was painted to correlate to the phoenix on the other wall. No epic adventure is complete without a ship. The story playing out in Madeline's murals has a ship based on the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia). The story within Arianna's murals places us out on that ship, looking up, and dreaming about the sky. Why wouldn't the next adventure take us up into the sky?

The navigation guidelines of the mural are centered on Hamal, the brightest star of the Aries constellation. Aries is Arianna's zodiac sign and I just could figure out how to work a ram into the aquatic theme that was going on in that section of the mural. The consolation was to create ram's head arches around the windows, and give a little extra emphasis to the Aries constellation. Plan is to apply base paint and then cut my template apart and draw in each of the pieces for outlines. In theory, by using a template they should all turn out identical. Assuming I don't find a way to mess it up.

I am really, really happy with out the phoenix turned out. I was really torn during the planning stages of the mural about what was going to go in this spot. I felt in needed to be a critter (Madeline has two dragons and a bunch of birds, after all). Going with the night theme my original thought was a owl would be appropriate. While owls are cool, I just didn't think it would be exciting enough. A mythical creature sounded like a good idea and one that glowed in some way seemed like the best option. A glowing bird with long tail feathers was the perfect fit and created a balance between the two rooms.

The castle in Arianna's room is the opposite side of the castle in Madeline's room. I used tracing paper and sketched Maddie's castle, flipped the paper and then added the sketch to the wall in Ari's room. I then made up what the rest of the castle should look like.

The castle stained glass window in Madeline's room had a peacock feather theme (which matched the forest theme of her room). This room needed a celestial themed window. I made this design to to meld together elements of the sun and the moon.

Brian Froud is a huge inspiration for my fairy paintings. All of the fae have been inspired from his sketches and I've tried to add little touches that make them mine. Like in Madeline's room I wanted a touch of music added to the mural. In the window the little guy is playing a fae guitar and the girl fairy is dancing to his music. Because it is night time they needed a little lamp to illuminate their dalliance. Girl Fairy's dress was painted to correlate to the phoenix on the other wall.

Constellation of Pegasus. Brian Froud is a huge inspiration for my fairy paintings. All of the fae have been inspired from his sketches and I've tried to add little touches that make them mine. Like in Madeline's room I wanted a touch of music added to the mural. In the window the little guy is playing a fae guitar and the girl fairy is dancing to his music. Because it is night time they needed a little lamp to illuminate their dalliance. Girl Fairy's dress was painted to correlate to the phoenix on the other wall.

No epic adventure is complete without a ship. The story playing out in Madeline's murals has a ship based on the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia). The story within Arianna's murals places us out on that ship, looking up, and dreaming about the sky. Why wouldn't the next adventure take us up into the sky?

Constellations of Argo, Monoceros, Phoenix and Hydra. More artistic license was taken with Argo and Hydra. Argo Navis is an ancient constellation of the southern hemisphere that has since been broken up into three separate constellations (Carnia, Vela and Puppis). As Madeline's room has a ship, I wanted one in Arianna's room too. I'm also enamored with the story/poem of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" which mixes aspects of the stars with the sea. Argo seemed like an excellent constellation to add and made a nice way to interpret a nearby constellation Hydra. Again, I didn't want to add a multi-headed monster to a child's room so an octopus seemed like a good compromise. If she ever asks we planned to tell her the giant octopus is giving the ship a hug.

Constellations of Pisces and Aries (center medallion).

Constellations of Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, and star Polaris. Some of the constellations have stories about how they relate to each other and I wanted the images to be like an illustration of those stories. I also made some changes to the traditional interpretation of how those images are represented in relation to the placement of the stars. For example, Ursa Minor is usually drawn as a bear with a very long tail. I've never understood that look and found if I drew the bear cub sitting with it's nose pointed up, it would match the shape of the stars and not have a ridiculous tail. I also positioned the bears much closer together than they appear in the night sky, but did make Draco's tail curve between them to represent that another constellation does in fact separate them.

Constellations of Draco and Hurcules. The story of Hercules' constellation is that he slayed Draco in order to take the golden apples. In the night sky, Hercules' is facing away from Draco. Again, I wanted these two characters to relate to each other so I flipped Hercules to be facing Draco so that it looked like they are interacting with each other.

Constellations of Virgo, Lupus, Leo and Pavo. Because Virgo, Lupus, Leo, and Pavo (the peacock) were all so close together I felt they could be placed together so that they all interacted in some way. In my rendition of these constellations, Virgo is a Mother Earth like character watching over wolf and lion as they play. Instead of just adding a peacock to the pair of animals Virgo is wearing a gown of peacock feathers which also adds to the "of the Earth" feeling to her.

Constellation of Virgo. A close up of "Mother Earth" Virgo.

    

Powered by Gallery Server Pro v2.6.1: Open source photo, video and media web gallery