“Let the little children come to me: and do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” Mat. 19:14
Drywall Mural: St. Anthony on the Lake
St. Anthony is the school my younger sisters and I attended since I was in the eighth grade. I received the sacrament of Confirmation there along with participating in youth volunteer and education programs during high school. Painting the mural at St. Anthony on the Lake’s childcare room was a pure joy and honor, especially since I worked in the childcare room myself. That being said, I had never painted a full wall mural before, let alone for a Parish I love and respect! By the grace of God, I completed the mural of Jesus and the little children; and learned a lot about mural-painting in the process.
I have broken down the mural-painting process into three main steps: Drawing, Prep, & Painting.
Drawing:
Materials:
Tape Measure
Sketching Materials (Digital or Pen and Paper)
St. Anthony was very lenient when listing their hopes for the mural which allowed me some creative license. Only that it be an image of Jesus and the little children. I first measured the size of the wall ( 121” x 96”) and created a scaled canvas on the digital drawing app, Procreate. I sketched out a few ideas and finalized a simple black pen sketch. Simple proved better in transferring the drawing to mural size. When coloring the sketch, I picked out shades of the primary colors as well as green and an off-black. I wanted to color with light pastel colors, keeping it light and cheery for the childcare room. Below is an image of the colors paired with the Sherwin Williams name and color code.
Prep:
Materials:
Plastic or paper floor cover/ drop cloths
Step Ladder, if needed
Blue Tape
Crayola Chalk
Meter Stick
A print-out of the final design, gridded
To prep the area, I taped off all outlets, baseboards, and the ceiling with blue tape. I covered the floor in plastic, taping it to the baseboard. Both the plastic and tape can be found at the paint store. I also laid down a drop cloth or two around the area. I decided to transfer my design using the grid method. I have also heard that a projector works well when transferring a design, I think it would have been less time-consuming than the grid. However. the grid-metho works fine, especially since the wall wasn’t too large. I found the center of the wall both vertically and horizontally, creating a four-quadrant grid. I repeated the process with each quadrant, creating a smaller grid until it was small enough to match the printed-out design and transfer using colored chalk (found at the craft store).
Prep:
Materials:
Small Roller
Roller Tray
Painting Palate, I used a plate from Walmart ($1.50)
Paint brushes of various sizes 1-2 from paint store & around 4 different types from the craft store
Commercial Paint, the smallest size of each color, Colortogo Pints ($11.29 each)
Fun Yellow (SW 6908)
Cloudless (SW 6786)
Mesclun Green (SW 6724)
Amaryllis (SW 6591)
Ironclad (SW 9570)
White (no colors added)
Tubes of Acrylic Paint from the craft store
Primary Red
Primary Blue
Primary Yellow
Basic Green
Brown
Paint Clothes
Wet rags
Paper towels
I first painted base colors and basic shapes, slowly adding detail layers. For the sky and green, I used a roller for the initial coverage. The other basic shapes, I used 2-inch flat brushes for large shapes and 1-inch flat brushes for smaller shapes. For detail, I used the 1-inch flat brush and worked my way to smaller sizes for each layer of detail. It is important to decide on a painting style and as I was painting, I adapted a brush movement style for each layer and even each color. My aim was to mimic atmospheric perspective in the grass by working my way from large strokes to small strokes. The faces were the most difficult as my initial sketch did not have much color detail. I chose to keep it simple and consistent. I used the craft store acrylics to create variant colors to the original palate of paint-store colors. Since the mural was mostly done with commercial paint however, I chose not to seal it wit a clear coat. Painting the whole Mural took about twenty hours and St. Anthony’s and I were so pleased with the results!
July, 2024