Mural Progress in the Nursery
June 3rd, 2008 by ariana
When you obsess over the little things like whether or not there should be a monkey in your unborn child’s nursery, life has a way of shaking you up and making you see reality.
This is what happened Saturday morning when I woke up to some bleeding which spiraled into a whole preterm labor scare that kept me in and out of the labor and delivery wing of the hospital most of the weekend. After much monitoring, many tests and procedures, things are looking much less dire and even though I’m at risk for preterm labor, I am optimistic that Jasper will hang in there for at least a few more weeks if not even all the way to full term.
I was on mandatory bedrest Saturday, so Jeff took the opportunity to start the process of putting the mural on the wall.
He started by using painter’s tape to sort of map out the general shape and scale:
Blocking out the shape and scale
Jeff in Action
Then he just started free hand sketching with pencil on the wall, until we had a faint outline:
After the ultrasound came back normal yesterday and my bedrest restriction was lifted, I went out and bought the two paint colors I’d picked. BM brushed aluminum for the tree and BM Wales Green for the leaves. Last night, we took the plunge and started painting!
The progress we’ve made so far..
There are a few spots where the free hand sketching didn’t work out so well, so we’ll have to go back in with the blue wall color and thin out certain areas of the tree to refine the shape, but overall I’m happy with how it’s coming out.
The brown dots were me testing monkey colors, I haven’t found one I like yet, I think the sample pot of brown I bought is too dark, so I may try just mixing in some white with it.
The colors are growing on me, the brushed aluminum looks a lot more brown than grey, I had wanted a bit more grey, but it’s not so bad it would be worth doing over by any means. The green is actually very close to what I had hoped, it matches the celedon green in the leaves of the bedding quite well.
Hopefully we’ll have a bit more progress to post tomorrow!
It’s already looking great. I wish I had you guys’ talent!
Looks wonderful!
Yay Jeff!
I’m so happy that the monkey gets to stay!!
Thanks guys, Jeff is pretty happy too Amalie :)
So happy to hear it was a false alarm.
I can’t belive how great that looks handsketched. Even if I could draw on a small scale (barely) drawing on a large one is a totally different game. Really impressive and looking great.
Thanks mrs.limestone, we made pretty liberal use of the eraser!
How Wonderful! It looks great!
Wow, I just found this blog and I’m adding it to my Blogroll right now! You can’t get better than artsy house bloggers. I wish that kind of talent. Your mural looks great!
I am so glad you and Jasper are OK!!!!
The tree is coming out fabulously!
WOW. It looks amazing. Its so nice that you are both making this for your baby. One of my husbands fondest memories is looking up at the rainbow his father had painted on the wall in his bedroom. You guys are so talented.
take care of yourself :)
It looks amazing so far, it will definitely become a fond memory for later in life. I can only hope that my future husband will do something so sweet for our future child.
I don’t know if it’s possible, but the monkey looks even cuter than it did in the concept art :)
LOVE IT! It looks incredible.
Get loads of rest and hang in there Jasper!!
Awesome! I love tree murals! Yours looks a lot better than mine though. I’m not just a little bit jealous.
Wow! I love this tree. I think the best part is it will be completely unique to your nursery. I see you let Jeff have his monkey. :)
Wow… it really looks amazing. I’m totally impressed! Keep up the good work :)
Looks freakin’ awesome – I’m really jealous. So when are you loaning Jeff out to work on my nursery again…?
Wow – very cool. Can you do one in my dining room now? :-)
Well it’s good to know if Jeff or I get laid off from our jobs we’ll have a few lined up ;)
Kayla, your beautiful tree was one of the inspirations me to take on this project..I love your quince!
Hello, I am just coming across your pictures today and can’t help but fall in love with the moneky and the tree! I am trying to decide if we can swing one of our own….did you free hand the drawing completey or use projectors too? Was there another picture that guided you? I saw that there was a photo taped to the wall…We are not the most talented in freehand painting but manage to get by, wondering how difficult you think it would be for an amateur?