How To: Painting a Precision Wall Mural

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Over some very toasty summer days, the dog & I took advantage of some air conditioning and painted a mural. I wanted a digitized cow print (for apparent reasons, if you know me), and so I scrounged for crochet/knitting/cross-stitch patterns that I could adapt. I found this Cow Print Pillow from The Crochet Couch, and decided to draw it up in Adobe Illustrator and somehow place it on the wall. Below is how I did it:

1. Step 1: Remove Things on Walls, Furniture, etc.
   

2. Clean the walls with TSP, rinse walls, and spackle any holes (sanding between layers)
   

3. Test out paint colors (I ended up with Benjamin Moore Sabre Gray, one shade lighter than the Cos Cob Stonewall shown on the right)
   
   I don't recall what the left color is, but it's some warm-shaded gray that looked like mud in this room, lol

4. Tape any edges, put down drop cloth, and cut-in edges with an angled brush
   

5. Use a projector on a projector stand to put the design on the wall
   Make sure that projector is level, especially if you're going to turn it on its side! We used some mis-printed business cards to get the projector level.
   

6. I opted to tape the design first, as my design is all right-angles (if it wasn't, I might paint the edges while still using the projector)
   

7. Paint inner edges of the tape with the background color, to prevent bleed-through
   

8. Test out colors for the mural design
   I ended up using a custom mix of these two below, two- and one-shade darker than the background color. Mostly the Cos Cob Stonewall sample mixed with the Ashwood Moss (the darkest color on the paint card).
   

9. Fill in the design with the selected color
   

10. Remove tape while paint is still a bit wet, if it pulls off many layers, paint over those areas with the background paint
    

11. Using an angled edging brush, hand-paint any of the damaged areas from the previous step
    

12. Done!