I was recently commissioned by Sissons Paint to design and paint a 22.5 x 10 foot wall at their flagship shop in Trinidad. Murals always pose a challenge, and this was no different, so I want to share some behind the scene as to what exactly goes into creating something like this.
The sketch
Like most things that I do, this mural started its life as a sketch. The brief from Sissons asked that I use 4 specific colours of theirs to create the painting, but I added in a darker shade of each colour as well to add some contrast…8 colours in total. Conceptually, I wanted a design that showcased the flora and fauna of the country in an abstract way. The inspiration from this came from the names of the Sissons Colours that I used; “Caribbean Blue,” “Poui Yellow,” “Young Parrot,” and “Candy Pink.”
Mural Mock up to show client what it would look like.
Once I finished the sketch, I started adding in the colours along with their contrasting counterparts. When I was happy with how it was coming along I mocked up the design on to a photo of the wall. By doing this, I was able to help the client visualize exactly what the wall was going to look like when it was painted. After a few back and forth changes to get it just right, it was time to paint.
Getting the wall ready to paint
I printed out the design many times on a grid so that I could easily (or so I thought) transfer the design on to the wall. The image below shows the image that I printed out to use as a guideline for the drawing with each red square representing a 1’x1’ area on the wall. This initial process of drawing the design took about 2 hours of us transferring what was on the paper onto the wall in chalk, and this was before we could even start painting. The next time I’ll be using a projector!
The print out for the drawing
For this project I worked with a team of 2 other people; Chevonne who is my account director at Backyard Design, and Aaliah, one of our super talented Junior Designers. Once the drawing was complete, we spent the rest of the day putting down the first coat of paint. The first coat took the three of us 8 hours to finish, but that included the time it took us to draw the design. All in all, day 1 was a lot of fun to see the mural come to life over the time we were there. Being up close, then being able to step back and admire the progress was definitely the highlight of the day.
On day 2, we spent our time doing a second coat of paint. This was the “unglamorous” part…but it made a huge difference in how vivid the mural looked. The painting was more or less complete, it was just to go over everything with that second coat and to make sure that all our lines were straight and that any spilled paint, or points of error were cleaned up.
Overall this was a great experience, and thanks to the help of Chevonne and Aaliah, we were able to pull off creating this key part of the Sissons Paint Colour Shop. Also, a big thanks to Sissons Paints for reaching out to me with this amazing opportunity and for trusting my vision!
The Final Mural!