Murals

Recently at work the subject of Murals came up.  One of the participant's in my class had said that he painted a mural of a Cherry blossom tree in his niece's bedroom.  He had a picture on his phone that he showed me, and it is magnificent.  He had said that he painted, but we had no idea what or how great he was.  In any case. I said that I had done several murals.  It tends to be one of the things I turn to when I am bored and have not had a recent creative outlet.  I was talking about the different things I have painted and he wanted to see them.  I however, do not have a cell phone, so he got a great chuckle out of giving me a hard time about not being able to show him my work.  Little did he know, that I have a BLOG!!! What a wonderful way to be able to share my work.

So here it goes, in no particular order....

This is an evening shot

We have a concrete block wall behind our house, and our office faces the wall.  It was always dreary to look out and see the concrete, so I painted the Sunflowers.

In the bright light of day

It was quite the conversation piece with the neighbors...at first I didn't think they liked the idea of my painting the wall, but when I finished it, they asked why I did not extend it further into their yards!!!

It totally makes me smile, every day when I see it, and I am so glad that I painted it.

This is the back side of our shed, it is in the screened in part of the porch.

This was the first mural I painted after we moved into the house.  We have an awesome, unobstructed view of the Superstition Mountains from the porch.  However if we are hanging out on the porch, enjoying the weather, a meal or company, if you are not facing the mountains, you were facing the back side of our shed.  To solve that issue, I painted my version of the mountains on the shed.  This way there is something interesting to see wherever you sit.  When a neighbor first saw it, he hesitated a while and then said "I like it"  I told him I was happy that he liked it, but that I didn't paint it for him, I painted it for me! :-)

The laundry room, the first thing you see when you come in the back door.

This came about after one of our many trips to the home depot.  I had picked up a can of "oops" paint to throw a little color into the Laundry Room.  It is hard to tell the color in this picture, but it is an interesting green color.  The more I looked at the wall, the more it called out to me for an image.  So I consulted my partner in crime, Alvin and asked for suggestions.  This is one of  his favorite cactus, and he loves the flowers, so this came from a photograph he had taken.  At first it was just the cactus, but they looked odd, just floating, so the pot finished it off.

Ratatouille, in the Kitchen

After seeing the movie Ratatouille, I decided to have a little fun in the kitchen.  The little sign says Ratatouille, you just can't read it in the picture.  The funny story about this is, we had an exterminator come to the house to spray for bugs, not that we had seen any, just all of the neighbors were spraying and saying that the bugs were moving from one house to the next if they didn't take care of it, so we had someone come over.  They inspected the house inside and out, then asked if we had seen any traces of insects or rodents.  We said no, except for the small mouse hole in the kitchen.  When he first looked to where I was pointing, he gasped, but then realized what it was and got a good chuckle out of it!

Guest Bathroom

After we painted the guest bathroom (another "oops" color that I really love)  I asked Alvin, "if I paint a window in the bathroom wall, what would you like to see out of the window".  I was thinking, a beautiful sunset, maybe flowers in a meadow, or a tree with a birds nest....but no, he decided he wanted Lombard Street in San Francisco.  So here is my interpretation of Lombard Street.  This is a tiny bathroom and I had to paint most of this standing sideways on a ladder, and it got really hot at the top of the ladder with the light on in the room, but I managed, and here it is!

So that is a look at the murals I have painted since moving into the house.  I am sure there will be more, and I will try not to wait so long before posting pictures.

Until next time,  happy crafting! :-)