The
Painted Garden
Bedroom mural for my daughter
Clicking on any of the pictures will bring up a bigger view of them.
I had a lot of fun doing this mural for my daughter (but it was a lot of work
as well). We worked together on picking
out to colors and items that were going to go into it. Some items (the two blue birds, the
birdhouse on the upper left, and the tiny birdhouse on the pole in the pond)
are painted objects mounted to the wall.
Some of the items were stenciled, some were freehand painted, and a few
are appliqués on the wall.
The lake is the most
complicated hand painted item in the mural.
Much of the mural was done with sponge painting, but this was all by
hand. The birdhouse on the pole is a
small wooden one (about 2" high) that we painted and glued onto the wall.
This
is an image of Belle, our daughter's cat.
Belle died several months before I did the mural, so we decided to put a
picture of her in it.
The birdbath in the center of
the mural is the first thing you look at.
This is very much like the birdbath we have in our backyard
(unfortunately, we don't have the arbor as well).
This is one of the solid
objects we placed on the wall. The
birdhouse is painted on all sides, and makes a nice change in the wall.
The two birds flying through the arbor are painted ceramic
figurines as well.
In this shot, you can see
one of the "hidden" pictures.
The star to the left of the bird can't be seen unless you're really
close. At night, however, it shines,
because it's been done with glow-in-the-dark paint.
The Luna moth is another "glow-in-the-dark", but it's
readily visible during the day as well.
We occasionally get these on our back porch screen on summer nights.
I've always like painting
butterflies, so I put this Monarch in. We
see these in our yard during the summertime.
This is one of the honeybees
flying in the scene. My daughter and I
did the bodies for these using stencils.
They also have "glow-in-the-dark" highlights for nighttime.
The Flowerpot Fairy and the
fairy at the top right of the mural are "Wallies", printed wallpaper
appliqués that I added.
What's a garden without a
flowerpot?
We have a lot of climbing plants in our yard, and a few
hummingbirds stop by daily at them and at our hummingbird feeder. If we stay really still, they're a lot of
fun to watch. You can't see their wings as clearly as this one!
Finally, while I don't like to
see snails in my real garden, we wanted to put one in the mural. Just one, though!