Mural Painting in Tampa, Florida

My niece, Julia, and I in her room with one of the murals that I painted for her a couple of years ago.

I just returned from a visit to Tampa, Florida. It was a good break and it was all about family (When the winter months roll around, it's always nice to have family in Florida).

My brother and his wife are expecting their second child during the coming weeks and they asked me to paint some murals for the new child's room in their home in Tampa. I painted murals for their first child, our niece, Julia, when she arrived a couple of years ago.

That's us again, in front of one of the smaller murals in Julia's room

In that first instance, my brother and his wife selected a book from which they wanted me to do the murals, "Guess How Much I Love You?" by Sam Mcbratney and illustrated by Anita Jeram. It was a pretty straightforward process in that case because I simply sketched out the pictures that would best utilize their wall space and then proceeded. But with their second child, they asked for scenes from the story of Noah's Ark. They didn't have a particular book in mind -- for some reason, it seemed that many of the children's illustrated books of this Biblical story are not especially suitable to a colorful wall mural for a child's nursery. But they knew that they wanted something cheerful and appropriate for the child until s/he reaches the age of six.

So, we gathered children's books with illustration styles that we liked and then we set about deciding upon which scenes would best tell the story. Unfortunately, my ambition was greater than my time allotted on this trip, so I was not able to finish all of the scenes for them. I had to develop the look and feel of the characters and then devise compositions for them on the available walls. It took a couple of days to get rolling because I did some sketches in watercolor before I started the murals, which were ultimately done in acrylics. The murals don't include all of the animals, of course, but a representative sampling. I'm fond of tigers, and my sister-in-law is fond of giraffes, so those figured in prominently.

The completed mural of the animals boarding the boat

As a result, I only finished the scene where the animals are boarding the boat and when they are out to sea. I'll have to return to their home sometime in '07 to finish. Until then, the animals are stuck out at sea. Nonetheless, I've posted photos from this trip as well as some photos of my super-cute niece with her original murals in her room. And, if I do say so myself, little Julia is quite a natural camera ham and she looks adorable no matter what the background....Spoken / blogged like a proud auntie, which I am.

Julia with the nearly-completed scene of the animals boarding the boat

A detail of the scene where the animals are on the boat and out at sea