After completing my first mural commission in January 2019, I was itching to do it again. So I turned to a small wall in my studio. But what would I paint on it!? It was overwhelming and exciting to think about it—every time I started to brainstorm I got instantly stumped by the most important element of the design: what colors should I use? Then, after weeks of frustration, I realized I needed to use the colors that were already in my studio.
I still had left over dark green paint from two summers ago, when I painted my bookshelf. And my rummage sale couch was a light blue with yellow throw pillows.
Once I had my colors picked, I flipped open my sketchbook and ideas for my little wall started to fill the pages. It was perfect and had two of my favorite colors. And ff course it had to have an urn, because am obsessed with urns. Who isn’t?
Once I had decided on a design I loved, I perused the paint chips at the paint store and cut out shapes with paper from college, to make sure I had the size of everything right.
It was important to use the paper cut out of the urn as a stencil so that everything would look more like an urn than a blob. However the leaf cut outs I did not use as stencils. I made three to tape to the wall to help me visualize the size that I liked. So when I began painting I would just have a leaf taped nearby to make sure it was the same size. Once I got the hang of how to paint the leaves, I didn’t need to use the cutouts anymore.
I managed to finish it all in a day and a half. Maybe one day I will paint a design on the urn. I cannot decide. So until then I will leave it as it is. I am completely smitten with the results.
