Camp Bedroom: Chalkboard mural

Oh my goodness! I am so super excited about this one...
I may not have Kim K's behind, but I'd like to think I could break the Pinterest with this post.
It's a how to...
Make a mural...
Make chalk paint...
Make a mural in chalk paint...

Make a chalk board mural with custom chalk paint!

I'm pretty impressed with myself. This was really, really super fun.

 

You will need some stuff.

• Paint brushes in various sizes
• Edging tools
• Many stir sticks
• Drop cloths
• Plaster of Paris ($7)
• Latex Paint (I used basement finds)
• Something to mix paint in-raid the recycling bin.
• A tablespoon

First, take your recycled sour cream jar or whatever, and pour in 1 cup of water. Mark that line. You need 1 cup of paint and 2 tablespoons of plaster to make chalk paint. At least according to Martha in some article I read on Pinterest, which I can't find at the moment. (When I tried to look it up again, to link it, all I found was a different article where she said grout mix. But the plaster worked just fine.)

Next, sketch your mural on the wall.

I started at the top, mixing and using one color at a time. Chalk paint is really thick and covered well with one coat (except on the closet doors which needed two coats). One cup of blue covered all but a bit of the cutting in on the last wall. This was good to know so I would know how much to mix of the colors that came later.

I started filling in the mural-I was painting the green mountains of Vermont. The mountains get darker the closer they are to you, so the furthest ones were the lightest green. I used just four colors for this, a light blue, a light green, a dark green and a dark brown. For the mountains, I started with the light green, then added a little more dark green to what was left in my cup for each layer of mountains.

Because I was painting quickly, I used a large brush to paint the body of each space...

...then used a small brush to cut back into the previous color. This gave the paint more time to dry. It dried pretty fast. I was glad that I was working on a graphic style mural and not trying to blend colors.

This is as far as I got the first day. Not to bad for having two little boys playing at my feet while I worked.

 

The next day I drew some silhouettes on contact paper. Kiddo could not decide which was better-a chipmunk or a squirrel-so we made one of each. You can find a silhouette of darn near anything by googling "______ silhouette." If you don't feel up to free handing the drawing, just print from google then trace your image onto the paper side of the contact paper. Once the shapes were cut out, I placed them on the closet doors, burnished them with a clean stir stick and kept painting.

I worked on finishing the mountains, and blocking in the foreground.

It's hard to see, but I decided that there was too much contrast between two of the mountain ranges, so I added in the in between ranges the second day. The midtone on the left was my first attempt, but it dried too dark, so I repainted it the third day a slightly lighter shade (right). I know it's hard to see, but it made a BIG difference when I backed up.

On the third day I finished the foreground details and the rock wall. Once everything was dry and I was happy with it. I carefully started removing the contact paper.

The contact paper preserved the finish of the closet doors, leaving perfect critter silhouettes. (The squirrel is climbing what will eventually be a sign post.)

Here's some images of the finished view from the tent in Camp Bedroom.

I love it and I want to switch rooms.

Eventually the nook will have 'rock' bean bags for lounging and reading, and it will look like the mural is coming off the wall.

And of course, the best part is...we can draw all kinds of stories on it!

Kiddo had a great time drawing and erasing, drawing and erasing, then telling me to 'Draw me a bedtime story Mommy." It was wonderful.

Then the next morning he stomped into my room demanding to know where his snowman was and why it was not a winter scene "because I want it to be winter in my room forever." If that sounds like it might have been a reasonable request, please note that it was 6:00 am, I was sleeping/nursing the baby, and it was the first I had heard of the snow requirement. And he was growling. I think my response was something equally reasonable, like "Um. No. Leave."

I guess you can't win them all. Even Kim has her critics.

-Jen

 

 

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