Mega Murals

and tiny monsters...

Greetings all! Another tumultuous week in the world, but thankfully here in my little corner, the sun has been shining and signs of Spring are emerging.

This past weekend, after 5 years of saying I’ll start, I’ve finally started the epic mural which will adorn the walls at the top of the staircase at home. Ok, epic might be a stretch - we’re not talking The Last Supper here, but it was always my intention to cover the top floor of our home in a beautiful immersive forest. After my daughter was born, I spent weeks painting her bedroom to look like a walk-in woodland - she had the main big bedroom in the house, which was flooded with light during the day. I loved that room. I wanted to create a wonderland for her, which I would fill with abundant plants, wildlife and birds…I made a great start, a deer, a fox, a hare, a wonderful Oak….she lived under the shade of the mighty oak for a matter of months….then we moved house.

The magical first mural - I fervently painted it whilst she was still sleeping by my bedside, only a few months old. I poured all my creative energy into this space, and it was wonderfully freeing to do, knowing I still had the verve and spirit still in me as a new mum. Maybe thats why I miss it so much.

I tried again in her new room, but it has always felt different - there are more windows and less space. And now it’s full of a six year old’s life and loves - The cuddly toy mountain grows exponentially. The tiny cot is now a big bed. The fairies have moved in and commandeered a wall for themselves. The Book Nook towers over another wall. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve painted quite a magical room, but I’ve always felt it needed more…

Allow me to digress. So, way back when…

I used to be a mural artist, you know! My first major commission after art school was a dream job, being paid by the hour to create wall paintings and artworks for a restaurant in my home town. Effectively, I was on staff to work my way around the building to make it look like a Romanesque villa, with patterns and fantasy beasts surrounding the faux-crumbling plasterwork, paintings of Emperors, Roman Goddesses and mosaics. Pre-camera phone, I have photos in a box in the loft, but the business was taken over some years ago, and the walls have long since been painted over….so you’ll have to trust me, it was fantastic!

Soon after, I was asked to create another Roman-inspired makeover for a restaurant in a nearby town (who knew this was a thing!) I couldn’t believe my luck as a new graduate that I was actually getting proper paid gigs like magic! My naive enthusiasm lasted as long as my illustrious career as a mural artist, as it was nearly 20 years before I had another paid wall-mural job, but it was amazing while it lasted…

Some snippets of Cubros Restaurant (again, sadly overpainted) - I painted big Pompeiian villa inspired scenes, a beautiful golden sundial and their logo in gold. Pretty cool. I also recall some large Gladiator-esque framed paintings which I had a whale of a time making look ancient with crackle glaze, but who knows where those photos are…

Modern Murals

I’ve done so many things in my career as an artist (portraits, both animal and human, public art, teaching workshops, live illustration, animation, design, signwriting…honestly, I’ll give most things a go in my own style) but with murals, I love the scale and freedom of painting involved - Cubros being the exception, as it was meticulously planned - many of my modern ones are freehand and less perfectionist.

These verbundant (yes, I’m making this a word) ones were made for the Pound Arts Centre cafe in Corsham during Covid times. Again, now no longer in situ (thats the transient nature of site-specific work I suppose).

This next one was commissioned by a fabulous friend to adorn his daughter’s bedroom - he even set up a timelapse to film me painting it (I do love a good a timelapse) on and off over a week…I’ve sped it up to a ridiculous degree, as it was mostly just extended shots of my backside…but even so, its amazing how quickly these things come to life!

So…whats happening with the home mural?

So, five years ago when we first moved in, I re-painted my tiny human’s room. I wanted to recreate the feeling of the first one, but the space is so different. She still sleeps under a big oak, but I’ve yet to fill it with life, although a family of magpies and a squirrel have moved in…

Foxy under the blossom tree (before he got hidden by a dolls house and a toybox…)

My grand plan to extend the mural out over the top landing is finally coming to fruition. The foundations were laid 5 years ago. I don’t know why now seemed like a good time to progress, but honestly, it was a quiet weekend and I thought I might as well. Five years ago, when my tiny human was actually tiny and had the attention span of a goldfish, I could’ve gotten away with her not wanting to participate. But now as a very strong willed six-and-a-half year old, she very much wants to be part of it.

Tiny (paint) monster

So perfectionist be damned, she is very much making her mark…after a brief blip, when I had the audacity to try and give her pointers on how to paint (and a subsequent desperate lecture on how art is going to be the only thing I’ll be able to have any authority on, not maths or make-up or languages or driving, and why does she listen to her teachers but not me, and no I’m not telling her that her art is bad or wrong, and of course she is free to paint however she pleases, and yes I love the way she paints and no, it doesn’t matter if its the wrong colour - turns out we were hangry and both needed a snack) she threw herself into the project with absolute relish! Long hedgehogs with cool hair, a field of finger-dot flowers, crazy birds and giant bees…just what this mural was lacking!

For my part, I’d barely made some silhouettes of, at my daughter’s request, a family of reindeer with trees for antlers, which will house various birdlife and apparently panthers, (ahem, we shall see how this develops)…from a decidedly un-snowy landscape for our beasts, to ‘Mummy deer’ sprouting some fine branches…

Apologies for the audio on this one…we wanted some singalong songs to accompany us…

So….this is where we are at the moment - there will no doubt be a grand reveal in a few weeks (likely months, lets not get ahead of ourselves, eh?)

Let me know what you think…any suggestions of wonderful wildlife to include?