Mural, mural on the wall

The pièce de résistance in the nursery is the mural Daniel painted. Knowing my limits physically (I didn't want to be around paint while pregnant) and, more importantly, talent-wise (I don't have a lick of artist in me, though I try) I left this project in his hands. The result: a mural that adds whimsy to the nursery while giving it a great focal point when you first walk in the room. Color me impressed!



1) First, Daniel sketched out his vision for the mural. This step I found particularly amusing because I imagine only a third grade boy completing an assignment entitled "draw your favorite Transformer/Power Ranger/whatever fills a 3rd grade boy with glee these days" could hunker down and show as much zeal as Daniel displayed. He cleared off a space on his desk, hunted down a fresh sheet of copy paper, laid out a selection of crayons and did nothing to hide his annoyance anytime I tried to talk to him during his sketching session.

2) Once the drawing was complete he scanned it in and digitized it by filling in colors over the scanned drawing in PaintShop Pro. I am really skimming over this part, because who wants the technical details anyway? Just know this was a step that took some time and lots of changes, tweaks and feedback took place.



3) After all the fine tuning was done in PaintShop Pro, the picture was ready to be projected onto the wall. Using a ladder, several bungee cords and every cuss word known to mankind, the digital projector was positioned in the exact location to project the picture perfectly onto our selected wall. And, yes, this jerry-rigging was as awesome as the photo makes it out. Eat your heart out, MacGuyver!





4) The picture was then traced onto the wall and the different colors were labeled.




5) Using sample-size jars of paint, a large-scale paint-by-numbers ensued and...voila, a mural is born.