Colorful Eagle mural for Elementary kids !
I am always happy to paint something for the kids...to inspire them...to entertain them.
Last month the principal of Central Elementary school in Hillsborough, NC reached out for some murals inside their school cafetaria. She had seen my previous murals installed at Montlieu Academy in High Point, NC.
I got excited and created a mockup which shows the school mascot (eagle) in a very colorful fashion. He is the central part of the composition. I used the schools' branding colors deep blue and red as dominant color scheme for this design. Then it came to add some faces of diverse kids-something I love to do.
However, this time instead of the realistic faces, the school wanted something illustrated and I created 4 cute characters of diverse ethnicities to reflect the diversity in the school.
My wife Cortni, who is also my assistant for murals and my business partner at Clever Doodle Design helped me install this first mural which is 7.6 feet high and 23 feet long.
We started by priming the wall in a sort of cerulean blue background. Upon which we laid out the design and started painting. We used a mix of Acrylic paints, Montana spraypaints and Montana water based paints and some latex paints. I also got my Iwata revolution CR airbrush to add some fine details on the eagle. While Cortni started filling out the background royal blue and other geometric shapes I worked on the Eagle as it was the main attraction of the composition.
Whenever I paint a composition I first tackle the toughest part so that I don't lose interest and am tired by the end of the project. Anyway I started with some big flares of spray cans to block out the pinks, and purples of the eagle. Once it was painted well and nice, I started adding details of highlights and shadows with airbrush using acrylic paints. By the end of the day we had the eagle fleshed out nice and finished and a lot of other elements covered. We had to stop and drive back to Greensboro, our hometown which is an hour's drive from Hillsborough
Next day I worked on the illustrated characters using the latex paints and acrylic paints with brushes as I wanted to give them a hand painted sketchy loose look. Cortni worked on the letters in the composition and finished other shapes.
Overall we were very happy with the results. The staff was very co-operative. Thanks for Principal Sauls, Vice Principal Christin and other members of the school who invited us to install these murals.
Apart from this main one we are going to paint 3 small pieces to depict the school cafe motto Eat, Play, Learn. Once again we are using bright reds, blues and some cute diverse kids in each panel.
Comments
Post a Comment