There seems to be a growing trend towards people decorating large wall spaces converting what artist/muralist Ray Gatica calls, “nothing wall space” into something colorful, artistic and visually interesting. “The days of the vast blank walls are over,” says Gatica, “options include faux painting techniques; prefabricated murals installed or, having a custom mural hand-painted by a commissioned artist.

The artist believes everyone has a fantasy mural they would like to have in their home or business. Murals can be fun, exciting, larger﷓than﷓life fantasies that can be realized by the following options. Either way, having a mural in your home can be great fun! A mural can enhance your decor in a large way and are excellent conversation pieces. Murals can be designed to be inspirational tranquil, pastoral and soothing, sheik, stimulating and provocative, avant-garde – all the way to bold and abstract. “Ultimately, the mural should reflect your personality, and make a statement about you”, says Gatica.

In this article, I would like to touch on various options available to decorate large wall spaces economically and effectively. Options include Prefabricated Murals, Photo-murals, and where to find them. We will also touch on the option of faux and decorative painting (even though not mural work, it’s a good option for converting empty wall space into something colorful and exciting). And, lastly, but not least, we’ll talk about having a custom – hand painted mural created by a commissioned muralist/artist, and how to find and select an artist to work with you – if you go this route.

He intends to provide a few helpful tips and advice, on how to make the realization of your fantasy mural a fun experience. Along with outlining the above options, he will advise on things a potential client can do to keep the price of a mural down to a minimum along with tips on to how to communicate your ideas to the artist, for a fun, rewarding and mutually satisfying experience for both the client and artist.

Prefabricated Murals: First, because prefabricated murals are mass-produced, and are easily found in wall covering stores, larger department and home stores they are lesser expensive option. These pre-printed murals come in assorted standard sizes and themes. The quality and selection has improved over the years. The variety of themes include baseball fields, sports themes, science fiction; mythical, fantasy art; New York and Chicago city skylines and, lush floral gardens; and rain forest, and green forests scenes, etc.

With this option, clients usually have to mount the mural themselves or have a professional installer do it for them. And, depending on the overall size, the mural there can be more than one section to put up. The prices for these murals vary from around three – seven dollars per square-foot. If help or installation is needed, a wallpaper hanger can help. You can find them in the painting and wall hanging section of your phone book.

Photo-murals: Secondly, there is the photo-mural option, where one can take a favorite photo to a large format printer. They will scan the photo, enlarge the photo and magically, print it out on a large format printer. Depending on the desired size, the client may have to paste a few sections together to complete a large mural. When going with this option, be aware that the quality of the final product depends on the original photo’s quality (Photos should be cleaned and focused prior to having them scanned and printed for the best quality in the final print). I advise, to avoid any problems, ask the printer to print a small section as a sample to approve before proceeding further. The client can then install the mural or have an installer do it for them same as with the prefabricated murals, above.

Faux and Decorative Painting: Even though, not murals, this is another economical option. You can find painters that do this type of work by calling local painting companies and inquiring with them.

Custom Hand painted Murals: Last but no least, these are a more, fun alternative of the options presented above and entails commissioning a professional artist/muralist to custom design and paint a mural based on your ideas, or fantasy. This avenue, albeit, a fun and exciting experience, can also be a little nerve racking, – not knowing what to expect. But a well-seasoned artist should be able to be able to allay those fears.

Oversize Canvas Mural: An oversize canvas mural option is especially good because if the client were to move in the future, they can always take it with them. Or they can even sell the canvas/art for a profit. There are two options for having a canvas mural. One option is stretch and mount the canvas directly to the wall. The other is to build a frame to stretch the canvas onto, and then mount or hang the frame at a desired location. Both ways entail measuring the wall, cutting canvas to a desired size, and to be installed, hung or stretched onto the wall. The stretched canvas is installed, trimmed and can be finished finished-off with a fancy frame or molding of the client’s choice. In the second option, the canvas frame can be hung on the wall in the traditional manner. In this mural route the artist is only in your house to measure and deliver the art/canvas piece, for he will paint the canvas at his art studio and then deliver the final piece to the client when done.

You can also check with interior designers, or look in the yellow pages of your phone book under, “Artist “, “Commercial Artist”, or “Murals”. Nowadays you can also do a search in Google, or your favorite search engine, for ‘murals’ or ‘muralist’, ‘mural artist’ (in your particular city), and something should come up.

Next, once you find an artist, set-up an initial interview/consultation, this is when you meet the artist and get an idea of the parameters: size, work surface, dimensions, coverage, style and client’s expectations, and establish the price. A brief contract with specifics like size, wall location, price and terms should be drawn-up and provided by the artist. This will help benefit both the client and the artist.

When you call the artist to discuss your ideas, ask them about references, their style, technique, experience and pricing. The more experienced the artist, the better the chances the artist will work with you in achieving a satisfactory design. Even though it is OK to call and interview a few artists and get prices, be respectful of their time, too. If you have a budget communicate that to the artist. This will help in finding the right artist to work with you quicker. Says Gatica.

Nowadays, you can usually visit their website to see their works and get an idea of what they do.

Style-wise, most professional, experienced muralist/artists are flexible, and can usually adapt to your particular needs and style, once they know what you are looking for. Above all, make sure you feel personally comfortable with the artist, as a person.

Gatica, believes, that above all – a professional artist should have patience and be a good listener in order to understand what the client expects. One-way The artist communicates his ideas during his initial presentation, is by putting color sketches on transparencies and uses a projector to project the ideas on to the proposed wall/s. This helps convey the idea to the client along with giving them an idea of the size and impact of the work.

Price, of course, is the foremost concern for almost everyone considering a custom mural. Prices can vary a lot depending on various factors. Do not be afraid to ask the artist for a definite price”. Some artists charge by the square footage and others charges by the project/job and include labor, materials and travel.

The artist suggests that potential clients can actually keep the price of a mural down by doing some research to help the artist. He advises any potential, future clients to “start clipping pictures out of magazines of what ever theme, subject and style is close to what you’d like to see as a mural in your home. When you are ready, show these ideas to the artist; this will set the parameters for the work and may keep the price of the overall project down.

Another way the client can keep the price of the overall project down further, is by having a definite idea for the artist to work off. Generally, this will be less expensive than – a situation where the client does not have a definite idea but is willing to allow the artist the artistic freedom, and “pay extra” for the artist’s creative time.

Prices for a custom hand-painted mural can run from five, to over twenty dollars a square foot, which can translate in, to a few hundred – to – a few thousand dollars.

Lastly on price, if you have been contemplating a hand painted mural in your home, and the price is the only thing keeping you back from realizing your fantasy mural, don’t let it scare you off. Generally, professional artists should be able to work within specified budgets and can provide ideas on ways to keep a price within a certain budget.

Above all, the overall experience of working with an artist during the mural’s creation and seeing the work progress from day-to-day, which might take up to a month can be quite exhilarating. One note of caution: when the artist begins painting do not panic or worry about how the work looks in the beginning (the first few days) – it may be a little scary, because the work will look rough. Just relax and let the artist do what he’s paid to do.

“Usually, towards the end of the project, I allow myself time to make minor, color and design adjustments if the client requests, which is included in the price”, says the artist.

Remember,It’s a matter of communication between the artist and client that ultimately makes for a mutually fun and satisfactory relationship.

In Conclusion: “Of course, I realize, I can’t paint a mural in everyone’s home, my intention is simply to make more people comfortable about working with professional artists/muralist.
Gatica concludes.

Author Bio: The author is a long term artist out of Houston Texas. He specialty is hand painting large murals and big architectural graphics including Gym Graphics, etc. Samples of his work can be seen at http://www.muralsandbigart.com.

Category: Arts and Crafts
Keywords: muralist, painter in Houston, Architectural graphics and murals