So often I have to prioritize and execute the projects/rooms that have more professional consequences or obligations (i.e. running a “business”). But with this project I stood firm, not moving it from my calendar all summer long, no matter how swamped this fall is going to be. I repeated what many a content creator has said in the past – “I will not go another winter without a floral mural on this alpaca/pig/art barn”. Water, food, shelter, floral mural. right? And it’s for no real purpose other than personal excitement, joy, experimentation, and good old-fashioned creative collaboration (why I got into this in the first place). I want my eyes to see flowers all winter and I want to spend a few days with an artist I admire, Racheal from Banyan Bridges fame, throwing colors on a barn, getting messy, and chatting about how we are both former Mormons, moms, TV hosts, and design content creators.
As a reminder, this is the art barn that is 1/2 for the alpacas/pigs and 1/2 a flex space for the kids to do art projects and for Gretchen and I to take calls after the kids get home from school. It’s old and falling apart and so charming. The outside needed a fresh coat of white paint, fine, I like white because it matches the rest of the buildings on the property. At this point I didn’t want to do a blue or red barn, I liked the idea of it looking cohesive architecturally, but boy was I feeling like I wanted to take a risk and a smaller shed/barn is the perfect place to do it. It’s just paint. If we don’t like it we can literally paint over it in one day. Brian still is like, “I have no what you are doing but go for it”.
We recently almost finished the inside (stained floor coming soon! See render above for the plan:)), so the whole project is coming along. The inside is looking very cute, so let’s get into what the outside could look like (with help).
Floral Mural Inspiration
I love this one, but it has more of an overall wallpaper pattern. I think the pattern might be too intricate for me to do and wayyyyy more time-consuming than we have, but pretty darn great.
I love this one, too – exciting, bright, graphic. There is something a little too bright and yet dark about it but the scale of the flowers and movement are really good. I should also say I want it to feel like a mix of PNW (Oregon) and Scandinavia. And I want it to not look totally odd/out of place on our property.
I LOVE this one. It is graphic but in a more Scandinavian folk art way which speaks to my soul (never been and y’all I’m going to need to go soon, this is getting ridiculous). It has symmetry but an organic movement, and multiple colors in the flowers, but not very watercolor-y.
Both the black house above and this white brick building were both done by Bailey Sullivan, an illustrator and muralist from Richmond, VA. She has a really cute, bright Scandi style. Love your work Bailey!
A few years ago Handmade Charlotte painted this mural and my goodness it’s good. It has more of a Marimekko vibe and she did it by projecting the illustration onto the barn and then tracing and painting. LOVE. Definitely go check her out.
She has a great post about “how to paint a gigantic mural” (and she’s rad – I’ve met her a few times at blogger conferences).
Mural Artist Banyan Bridges FTW
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
