I was looking through photos of some mural painting jobs that I had done in the past. After looking through them, I thought that I’d share some of them with you. Back then when I was working on murals the name of my business was, “Chrissy’s Creations.” The photos above show what I painted at a local hair salon. This salon was in the same strip mall where I worked at a Hallmark store. Unfortunately neither the salon or the Hallmark store are still there after they tore down the old mall building and built a new one.
These photos are from a bug and nature themed bedroom that I did. It was a fun room to paint. My client wanted me to include some lightning bugs, so on another wall (not shown), I painted some lightning bugs that glowed in the dark. The bug/nature room and the hair salon jobs were an average size mural job. Next, I will show you a collection of photos that feature the biggest mural job that I have done.
Here’s a photo of the very beginning part of the job. For this job my client wanted me to paint the entire room to look like a town with a bakery, flower shop and flower cart, candy shop, barbershop, and dress shop. I didn’t work there consecutive days, but in total it took me 14 days to complete everything. It was the most enjoyable of the murals that I have painted.
Here’s what part of the room looked like when I was done. This room was for the client’s three young daughters to play in and do crafts in.
The “Tastee Bakery” was the first building that I started to paint in the room. It was a “treat” to paint all of those “tastee” desserts in the window.
In this photo you can see the telephone booth that I painted. The first section of the room I painted is where the bakery is next to the phone booth. Since they had a phone on the wall, we decided to paint a phone booth there so it looked like the phone belonged right there in the town scene. I can’t remember if my client requested that I paint a phone booth or if I thought of it.
Here are some photos of the flower shop that I painted.
I had the challenging task of trying to squeeze in a flower cart that my client requested. Since I ran out of wall space, I needed to paint the cart in the corner of the room. It actually worked out pretty well. This is one of those times when painting myself into a corner was okay.
Here’s a close-up look at the flowers that I painted on the flower cart.
The photos above show a work-in-progress of the candy shop that I painted. The way that section of the room was shaped made a good spot to make a candy store. Plus, it was fantastic to have an actual door there to use as the door for the building. If you look closely on the right hand side of the shop, you can see a gumball machine that I painted. And there’s a sign hanging above it that will eventually have the name of the sweet shop on it.
Just around the corner on the opposite end of the candy shop is where the client wanted me to paint a clock/street sign, trellis and a mailbox. This section of the room was an entryway into another room where her daughters could practice their dance steps. In the dance room, one side of the wall was lined with mirrors and a ballet bar. On one street sign I painted “Dance Studio” and the other I painted “Downtown.”
In another section of the “downtown” area, across from the candy shop, I painted a dress shop window. This window was one of my favorites to paint. It was so much fun painting the dress and accessories in the window. I loved painting it!
In another section of the room, my client had a chalkboard hanging up and she asked me to paint a school house design above where the chalkboard would hang. Their last name was “O’Leary” so she wanted me to paint “O’Leary Academy” on the design. On my last day there, I asked my clients daughters to pose in front of their favorite part of the town. All three of them were such sweet girls. It was sad to leave them when I was done with the mural.
Here’s a look at a “before” and an “after” of the Sunlight Delight children on the day side of the sailboat.
Here’s the ladder boy ready to do some painting with his paint brush in hand and his paint partner is standing by holding up the paint can for him.
The Star Explorers are ready to search for beautiful sparkling stars in the night sky.
The young explorer holding the telescope is the first to see the approaching stars. He’s ready to let the star catchin’ boy know that there are stars ready to catch in his net.
Yay!!! The star catchin’ boy has already caught seven sparkly stars, enough for each traveler on both sides of the boat to have one star.
Here I am posed next to my boat. Sigh! I was going on about 3 hours of sleep that morning when I posed for those pics. It is a relief to have the boat completed on time and delivered to Lake Geneva. I saw so many awesome boat sculptures when I dropped off my boat. Stay tuned for my 
The photos above show how I painted and attached the sun and moon to my sailboat. In the middle photo I showed how I sandwiched scrap pieces of styrofoam in between to fill in the space. Before adding the foam, I used Apoxie Sculpt to adhere the sun and the moon to the boat. After adding the foam, I covered it entirely with Apoxie Sculpt. One of my favorite pieces to sculpt and paint was the man in the moon.
Here’s how my moon and stars look when they glow-in-the-dark. You can faintly see the stacked up kids (a.k.a. “the star explorers”) in the first photo while they are searching for stars.
Speaking of the stacked up kids, here they are standing next to me. They measure about 3 feet tall, so they are over half my height.
This is me painting the letters on the night side of the boat. It was a tough angle to paint at, which made it longer to finish painting the lettering on the boat. The other two photos show how I painted the telescope on the piece. It worked out pretty well to have the stacked up kids inserted to the the boat while I painted the telescope.
The photos above show a “before” and an “after” of the star catching boy and the stars for his net. He’s ready to catch even more stars with the star explorers help.
Here he is…..the ladder boy! He is the last featured kid sculpture in my sailboat series, but certainly not the least. He has the task of painting the clouds onto the sail so he has a very important job to do. To create the ladder, I bought a few wooden dowels and asked my dad to cut them to the sizes I needed. Then I drilled holes at each of the ladder rungs and measured out where the rungs would be placed along the legs of the ladder. After marking off where the rungs would go, I drilled holes into the ladder’s legs. I used pieces of wire at each end of the rungs to insert into and attach the ladder legs. Once all of the rungs and legs were together, I began to secure everything together with Apoxie Sculpt.
It was very satisfying to see my ladder all pieced together. The ladder measures almost 3 feet tall, so I had a lot of ladder surface to cover with Apoxie Sculpt. After the ladder was done I worked on positioning the boy onto the ladder, trying to determine exactly how his arms and legs would go. I also positioned the 
In the center photo above, I showed how I created the structure for the ladder boy’s paintbrush. As I painted the ladder boy, it was fun to see him leaned up against the table, like I had this mini friend exploring the house.
As one extra treat, here’s a look at a before and after of the painted sailor girl. You can also see how I painted the base of the boat with a blue stripe and the “Sunlight Delight” lettering.
Today I thought I’d show you how I made my paint girl and telescope boy sculptures for my sailboat project. The photos above feature some work-in-progress stages of creating the paint girl. I used scraps of styrofoam material to form her dress. It worked out well to fill in the volume and shape of the dress.
This gal will be standing alongside my “ladder” boy while she holds up a bucket of paint for the ladder boy to paint with. I don’t know if I have revealed any pics of my ladder boy yet, but he will soon appear at my blog. The other day the sun was shining on my paint girl and I loved how she looked with the sun bursting through her arms.
My paint girl threw her arms up in despair. She wanted braids in her hair and after some brainstorming, using the foil just was not going to work out well for creating braids. In a drastic move, I snipped off the foil extensions and carefully placed some wires on her head to help support the braid work.
The photo above shows I used the wires to support the braids. After I had the braids attached and cured, I decided to add another layer of Apoxie Sculpt to help thicken and strengthen the braids.
And here is my telescope boy and paint girl hanging out in my studio enjoying the sunlight. Once they are on the sailboat they will no longer be able to hang out together since one will be on the night side of the boat and the other on the day side.
The photos above show how little by little my telescope boy came together. Eventually he will be standing atop two other kids searching for stars in the night sky.
My telescope boy exclaimed, “Look!” He’s on the lookout for more sailboat updates and he can see another coming soon. Don’t miss my next 
Here is an inside look at how I’m creating my “Star Catching” boy sculpture. The first photo shows the beginning phase of my sculpture standing on his own account. I had no idea it would balance on its own standing like that. A pleasant little surprise. The last photo shows how I propped up the sculpture on the sailboat piece. You can see he is holding a net containing stars. Yes, he is the “star catcher” of the sailboat floating through the night sky.
As you can see, I still have more work to do on my “star catching” boy sculpture. Presently he is “bald” in need of some hair and his hands and shoes are also in need of more sculpting. You might notice some lettering on the side of the boat. That is my “template” for painting the letters onto the boat. This week I need to get the boat painted and paint the boat names on each side of the boat. I have two weeks to finish everything. Sigh……….now take a deep breath……..
Yesterday my sailboat was in an unfortunate accident. The propeller completely snapped off due to the garage door being opened and the dangly red thing hanging from the garage door opener getting caught in the sailboat propeller. The photo above shows the “removed” part of the propeller with the damages being repaired. There were a few cracks on three of the propeller blades that I’m repairing with Apoxie. Next is the task of reattaching the propeller and trying to see if I can get it to spin yet by reattaching it.
An artist who aspires to become a children's book illustrator. Stays young at heart and an avid daydreamer. When the weather permits, I enjoy visiting/biking on the nature trail near my house. Visiting the trail has brought me many hours of enjoyment and relaxation. My camera is usually by my side while on the trail. I like to try to find the small and unnoticeable as subjects for my photos. And of course flowers and plant life encompass many of my subjects.
