Paint Inside The Lines
The year was 2005. We lived in New York. We were renters and most of our great design ideas had to be filed away for later. And today I uncovered something awesome from that file: an easy step-by-step guide to painting a dramatic mural in your home.
This is an article I scanned featuring a guy, Martin Rivas, who used a paint-by-number technique to create a retro-style mural in his New Jersey basement. Click the image above to see a larger (readable) version of the article, or just use my cliff’s notes version below.
Step 1: Pick an image that you love (which has similar proportions to your wall). Make your life easier and save some money on paint by also using something that has a limited color palette. Martin chose this vintage Mexican hot chocolate ad. Muy caliente, no?
Step 2: Go out and buy your paint and supplies (rollers, brushes, paint trays). Here’s where you save that money on fewer colors.
Step 3: Transfer the image to your wall. Martin did this using the age ol’ trick of drawing a small grid on the original image and a corresponding larger grid on the wall. Then you can sketch your image square by square in pencil. An alternate option is to use a projector to cast your image directly onto the wall and trace it in place (that’s if you’re the fancy type that owns a projector).
Step 4: Now it’s just like paint by numbers. Simply fill in the lines, starting with the largest areas first. Sounds easy but it can be time intensive. As proof, here’s an animated version of Martin’s mural coming to life (don’t worry, it loops – it’s just a tad slow).
Cool, right? Have any of you all attempted this? Seems straight-forward enough, so I just have to find a wall and an excuse for doing this somewhere in our house. If only I had a man cave…
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murals are not really my thing – but that one and the technique are great! the possibilities are endless.
Yes!! A friend uses this method all the time when she has uber art to do. She reconstructed an old orange grove billboard sign this way!
Very cool mural!
I used that technique in my son’s room when he was about 2 years old (he’s 24 now!)…painted Garfield and Odie. I’ve done things freehand but this made it much easier to get everything to the proper scale. Love your site and all the ideas!
Another way to do this and make it even easier, is to go to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby and buy paint pens with a wide tip. They come in tons of colors – even metallics – and go on smoothly, eliminating the need for a brush. This is especially helpful with lettering. I’ve made many a 5′ x 18′ banner using this process. Works like a charm and you look like a pro.
Wow I LOVE this!
I think that before painting your room, pick out a color scheme for your walls. When you chose your paint, remember that many painting techniques use two shades of one color. If you are using one of the techniques that does use two shades of color for painting your room walls, you can pick a darker color than you normally would chose for your base color, since the lighter top color will make the final result much lighter.
Regards, Nilda
I just finished a mural free-hand, but I will use this technique the next time. My one handy tip is to buy sample size paints…they go a lot further than one would think and don’t cost to much.
We have a guy at our firehouse that painted a mural on our apparatus room wall. What amazed me was that he had the thing drawn up there in about 2 hours. It was pretty intricate too. At least to me it was. Painting it out took quite a bit more time though. I need to hire him to come do something like that at my house.