Thursday, June 30, 2016

Tree Murals Continued



This was the third of the ten murals painted. It is from the book Tree: Seasons
Come, Seasons Go. I spent the most time on this mural. It actually still has a few
details that I'd like to add. But, I felt like it was time to move on and start filling up
other spaces.

It was one of the two largest, and had the most color changes. 
Most elementary teachers will recognize this next one as Scaredy Squirrel. 
This is not the finished piece, I think I spent another hour or so on it after 
this picture was taken. 




Tuesday, June 28, 2016

And a Few More Tree Murals

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, seems to be a favorite amongst the adults. This may have been the first of the ten that "sold". 
For $1000, there will be a dedication plaque near the tree. I think 6 sold before school was out. 
This one was a lot of fun to do. It comes from the book Stars. Even though we can't totally black out the library, because of the emergency lights, we added some glow paint for when the lights are turned down. 


Thursday, June 23, 2016

School Murals


Since March I've been working on this mural project in my spare time. The library staff asked me if I would be interested in painting some murals in the their library. Not knowing exactly the number, I said yes.

Things didn't quite come together for that summer, but I was able to make a Pinterest board and brain storm some ideas. When we started this year, I met with the librarian and he had done the same. We had both been pinning literary trees. 

The hope for the library was to transform and be more versatile with tables that could function in a variety of ways easily and include a makers space with a 3-D printer. And of course the murals, 10 to be exact. 

To be honest, I had never painted a mural and was a little intimidated. Where do you start? What kind of paint is best. They are offering to pay, how much do you charge? I'm still working on that last one. If anyone has advice on this...I'm all ears,

 Well, after a budget was approved for the tables, chairs, shelves, printers and so on they approached me a couple days before spring break to start on the paintings. Luckily, we had decided to do a staycation for spring break. So, over those 9 days I worked in the library on these two murals, a Truffula tree from The Lorax and the cover picture for We Planted a Tree. I'll be sharing more pictures soon.