Check me out on FIXR.com ^

For those of you who dont want to listen to me run my mouth off, heres the eye candy of the finished product! A full wrap, ceiling and all!

First of all, i would like to thank my wonderful wife Alyssa, who was totally on top of the game through this entire project, from first draft to final execution Alyssa has been a vital part of the planning, decision making, and indeed painting of the mural and without hers and my awesome mom’s help(who spent a good 2 days of her own time taming this wild fairy tale onto these walls) I would still be there throwing paint around on my own.. Which wouldnt really be that bad because these particular clients Dawn and Austen were totally freakin’ awesome! Fun to be around, totally enthusiastic about the project, but definately not too pushy. They totally trusted us to come with something that would no doubt turn heads years down the road.. I hope they dont mind me saying but we were also graced with the new and exciting news that they are having a baby girl!! They had found out as we were driving to finish the mural and let me tell you it inspired all of us to put some extra love into the piece.

We werent sure how we were going to get the EXACT characters that were requested and since i dont do nurseries as often as lets say a dark sci-fi scene with some kind of robot or exploded building, we had to seriously plan ahead and we ended up deciding that a projector was the way to go… well several trips to the dreaded Mac Store(thumbs dowwwwwn, shitty service) and eventually realizing that my projector and ipad are NOT compatible(and the SAME guy who sold the cord to me, who told me it worked, wouldnt waive the 15% “restocking fee”.. shit I’LL put the damn box back up there on that shelf for you shorty..), we finally got ahold of a projector “somehow”. (dont want to get anyone in trouble..)

And here i am right after Cat in the Hat was drawn up.. we had limited access to the projector so we had to make the lines first. But soon we get done mocking everything up with paint markers and get to covering the walls so if nothing else the room isnt as intimidating.

Yeah.. drawing the ceiling was fun.. it got alot better when i finally broke down and stood on a bench. I definately got my stretching in for the week though.

At this point we are in the heart of the project or the “murky middle” as i like to call the point in a painting where theres no going back, no changing concepts, and at this point if you dont know what your next steps are it can get ugly fast.. luckily this isnt our first walk in the park.. Another thing about this part of a painting is that the immediate satisfaction of seeing fast changes slows down considerably. now the hard work begins, patching, filling, re-rolling, and a list of small mundane tasks now lie in front of us as we contemplate the rest of the project..

The next time we worked on the project we took my mom, another great artist and someone who made the mistake of offering her time to help. We definately werent going to ask twice and we put her to work. Again guys thank you so much for all your help you guys are AWESOME!

We started to get close to finishing and we were all feeling the pain by now. Its a labor of love and man i  REEAAALLY love it! After tens of hours doing the patchwork and after the mural starts looking halfway decent, Alyssa takes a break and runs to get us a few more paint pens at the store while my mom and I finish up the patchwork. Time to hit up the lines one more time and get everything to pop! but first i have to finish up the ceiling!! IM SORRY SPINE!!!

Alyssa did the orange and green by herself and kept reminding us haha, im not envious because after the ceiling that wasnt happening for my knees and besides i think Alyssa did a better job than i even would have they look freakin awesome!

Towards the end Dawn texted me asking if we would be interested in painting One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish on a dresser she and Austen had purchased. So along with the fan blades we took the drawers home that night and a couple days later we had accessories to accent the work we were about to finish.

This is Alyssa getting frusterated at the red paint.. it was super thick and VERY transparent. it also almost repelled away from whatever you were trying to paint with it so it wasnt the most satisfying paint to use in the project. We learn new things every time!!!

And this is me painting the fish for the dresser, man were we tired at this point we couldnt wait to go deliver the accessories and finish everything up. Keep in mind this is all after our second, third, and possibly even our fourth winds were gone, we were tired and realizing the real commitment it takes to finish such a project. Geez look at my hair.

Alas! we finish it all up and snap a few shots! (most of the finished photos are up top so scroll  up, but heres a few for your troubles..)

Thanks for reading guys! I’m hoping to do more of this kind of blog post about upcoming projects so stay tuned for more! Hopefully more videos too! Peace!!

DONT OVERTHINK IT!

Only some of you will understand the meaning of this painting. Its a very personal piece that helped me get rid of some demons. It started as an experimentation on texture and a chance to play with my new palette knife but turned into my favorite piece to date. Let me know what you think! I hope you guys enjoy it! 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas, 2011

Watch Me Panting \"1937\"

Hey everyone! They are hot off the press, i have small, medium, large, and XL in a neutral grey. On sale until the new year from $25 to $20!