Playful PaletTe: Living Room Larks

I spent the better part of last weekend making a simple mural on my living room wall. We have lived in our current place for three years now, and still really haven't gotten to decorating. I really don't know where the time goes, but I feel like I only get a chance to do 1 painting project a year! So when A told me that he was going to have to stay home all weekend working, I jumped at the free time to do a painting. We live in a loft, so our ceilings are high and we have this one huge wall that I have never been able to find artwork big enough for. A mural ended up being the perfect way to liven up the space with a personal touch. I was originally planning on doing a bunch of birds on a few electrical wires, something I had seen at Golden Gate Park a while back and had since been inspired by, but A was worried that that would be too monotonous on our huge wall. So, we decided to something a bit more whimsical instead.

We found a 12-foot orange ladder in the garage an hauled it in. Honestly, maneuvering the ladder through our building's narrow hallways and stairwells was the hardest part of this project. Working on this massive ladder was a bit nerve-racking as well, but I only had to go about 2/3 of the way up. The max height of the painting is about 12 feet. I loved how the bright orange ladder looked against the backdrop of the paining. Maybe we should leave it in the living room as an art fixture ;-)

I drew all of the branches and leaves free-form directly on the wall. I didn't want to have to erase too much to get the birds just right on the wall, so I made a few bird stencils instead. This made the sketching portion of the project go much faster!