I have a friend who commissions me to paint murals in her house. I love accepting commissions from her because she tells me the subject and encourages me to do WHATEVER I WANT. This is the greatest blessing an artist can receive from a paying customer!
I've done several projects in her house. Her safari loving daughter got a giant, twisting tree along a bedroom wall. Her son got a multimedia life cycle of a dragon. And each family member got their initials painted on a canvas in Celtic lettering.
My friend is Irish. She loves Celtic circles. Naturally, she wanted one painted on her dining room ceiling. She found one she fell in love with in a book. This illustration was no bigger than the diameter of a 1/4 c measuring cup. She wanted it 4 feet in diameter on her ceiling.
Sure, no problem.
I spent 4 months standing on her dining room table, working on her ceiling. (Insert Sisteen Chapel joke here. there were plenty). I often had an audience. Her children run around the table trying to show me a variety of books about dinosaurs. Her father would grab a beer and make himself comfortable for a few hours. Who can blame him? Cute chick on a table? Seriously. Her two dogs tried to climb up there with me to hang out, and on one occasion, the bearded lizard attempted to leave his cage because I moved out of his line of sight! And I left the project with crick in my neck from being in the same position for so long.
To date, this is the most difficult project I've done. I enlarged the image on mural paper to the size specified; then used an Exacto knife to perforate the paper. Enlarging the image changed how the circle looked, something I hadn't planned for. The mural was taped to the ceiling, then traced with pencil. I retraced the lines after removing the paper. Then began painting. I used latex interior flat paint, which needed three coats.
I'm sure there was an easier way to do this, but I was on a budget, and needed to make the whole thing work. In the end, my patron was happy, and her dining room does have one serious WOW factor. Oh, and that nerve unpinched itself, eventually.
