The Fish Nursery Mural... Part 1

A month or two ago a good friend of mine asked if I'd paint a mural in her nursery. She and the father-to-be had picked fishing as the theme for the decor and she just found out she's having a boy.

Paint a room full of fish?! How could I say no??

She had a family member paint one wall of the nursery a rich shade of blue and that was to be the designated mural wall. Made my job pretty easy since all I had to do was fill it with feeesh! :)

When I arrived to start the project, I sketched out a few ideas for different styles of fish to get an idea of what she had in mind. I knew she wanted colorful fish, but was she going for exotic tropical style fish, or less-flamboyant local fish? She chose the latter, so no angel fish or parrotfish for this nursery. (Some of the fish would still be somewhat tropical looking though, due to their bright colors...)

I sketched out the fish on the wall in chalk and the two of us began to fill them in with white paint, to use as a primer. On a dark wall, a bright color like white or yellow or red requires lots of layers of paint, and the white underneath helps keep the color nice and bright looking.

She informed me that Daddy, being an avid fisherman in Southern Maryland, was adamant that there be at least one Rockfish included in the mural!

I drew him chasing after a school of little feeder fish. Poor baby feeder fish!! So cute! So tiny! So tasty!
Here's a close up of the feeder fish after they were filled in :)

 

These are two of the more tropical-looking fish. Having some colorful fish works well to balance out the more neutral fish like the Rockfish.

This picture shows 2 full days of progress on the mural. Not as far along as I had hoped, but doing many coats of paint over a dark wall takes a lot of time.

I added in another Rockfish (two's better than one, right?) and the great thing about them is that when you enter the nursery, they're totally the focal point of the room.

Daddy is happy :)  and I think Mommy is, too!

This weekend I'm heading back down to finish the mural and will post pics once it's complete!