Paint an Italian Mural on Your Wall

Many people would love to have a professional artist come in and paint a mural on that one drab wall in their home. Here is a way you can do it yourself, and save lots of money.

Please understand that you don't have to do this exactly as is drawn. Instead, think of this as more of an inspiration to allow your creative mind to draw on.

Start by moving all of the furniture away from the area to be painted. The idea with this mural is to spread it out onto the adjoining walls to make it appear to be a real view.

Place a cloth or plastic drop cloth on the floor and secure it in place with painter's tape. As with any painting of any kind you will want to start fro the top and work your way to the bottom.

As you see, this mural has an imaginative wall breaking off parallel with the one wall to be completely painted. Start by masking this area first on the ceiling, and paint these two colors in starting with the lighter color first.

Use a daubing brush or sponge to give the paint a textured look. You will want the darker color to be much darker so that it has a realistic shade appearance to it. Once you have these two colors painted in you can start on the sky.

I left the ceiling alone with just the clear blue sky. Should you want to get a hazy or cloudy effect, go for it. Remember that for a misty effect off in the mountainous or hilly regions, a more whitish gray tone with a hint of blue will pull this off.

For a more detailed effect, if you want this challenge, use spray paints or an airbrush to paint the sky. This will add a great texture look instead of a brushed on appearance.

Keep working at the sky until you feel it is how you want it. Pencil off the horizon lightly over the dried sky region. Sketch in the border of the coastline keeping in mind you want to mirror the landscape.

The next step will be to use a ruler to measure up to where you want the stone fence line to be, and draw it in place. After that draw in where the outline of the granite tiled floor.

Here is the fun part. You can paint in all of the landscape mirrored into the lake, or just the lower area. This all depends on how far away you want it to appear in the mural.

The further away you are the less you will see of the landscape. The closer you are will bring out more detail of both landscape and sky.

Clouds also have an effect on how the water will appear. The cloudier it is, the more hazy and dullish the water will look. There will not be any definition of the landscape in the water, but more of a muted sense of shading here and there.

Again, the closer you are, no matter how cloudy it is, you will see more detail of what is on the other side of the water reflected back into it. Having pictures of reference will be a great asset in determining the best composition for your mural.

This would even look good in a bedroom. The reason for the imaginary wall break is in case you have windows nearby. This will give good reason for that "wall" to be there.

Start painting in the furthest rage of land with the lightest shade of purple, blue or green. Green means the sun is directly overhead. Purple is a sign of it setting. And blue is in between the two of them.

Take your time in getting the gradual tones of land painted. It is okay to overlap the previous color. Not all land is formed the same way. Remember to paint in the same color below the lake line if you want that area to show up.

When you get to painting in the darkest color by the lake, add more definition with darker tones. Who knows, maybe you can identify some of the tree trunks in there. Do the same in the water.

Once you have finished painting this area, and it has dried, paint in a few hints of highlight to the water with a liner brush dipped in titanium white. You can also use silver or gray, depending on where you are painting.

Here is where the real challenge lies. Using the pencil, sketch out the detail of the mortar and stones. You can also add a flat top ledge around the top to have a smoother look instead of trying to get all that detail of the stones in.

Yes, even though you do not see it in the picture there will be a hint of a ledge above the stonewall. Take your time. Once you have this all drawn, paint it stone by stone. You can come back to paint the mortar.

Think about the direction of the sun hitting the wall. Paint in an angled shaded area for a more realistic look. Match that with the wall adjacent to it.

Next is painting in the granite flooring. Before you do this, lie out the carpet squares on the floor and draw up from where they meet for the crevice between them.

Remove the tiles of carpet. Start from the center, and draw in perspective the additional crevices. The outside ones will take a few minutes, as you will need to step back to get a better visual on them.

The parallel crevices will take a little while. You can snap these in place with a snap line for carpentry. Now the painting begins. Less detail will be further away.

You are becoming a master painter, as you are just about to finish up this wonderful mural. Allow the paint to dry well.

All that is left to do now is tape off the archway, and paint it in place. Oops! Did you remember to paint in the border of the land around the lake?

Okay. Go back and put the thinnest line of black that you can along this border. Above that, paint in some sandy and dark tones of dirt just a little ways in. You can add some rocks here and there, too.

All that is left now is to place the carpet tiles in on the floor. The best thing about this is that you do not have to secure them down unless they will not stay in place on their own.

Clean up the area, put back the furniture, and now you are ready to shock and amaze your family and friends when they come over and visit. They will probably ask you how you could afford to pay a muralist.

Primary colors in pint or quart containers and a large board for a palette will keep you from having to spend all sorts of money on professional paint from an art store. Black and white paint will help in changing the tonal values of the colors you mix.

Sit and enjoy your new room. You can say that you did the work.