Mom's Birthday Surprise
This weekend my mom celebrated her... um... she celebrated a big birthday. I didn't ask her if I could post her age so I'll refrain, but if you want to know just ask me*. Anyway, she celebrated a milestone birthday and to help her celebrate, I surprised her with a visit and a project that she and I had been talking about for a couple of years.
*Email, call, smoke signals - I'm happy to tell anyone how old she is, I just don't want to put it in digital stone! The only clue I can give you is that ten years ago we had a surprise 50th birthday party for her... I'm still trying to track down my pictures from that one!
My parents have a house just outside of Orlando that has taken a decidedly Disney direction. Different rooms of the house are themed after different aspects/movies of Disney (there's a Hundred Acre Woods room, a Dumbo room, etc.). The smaller bathroom just off the pool was painted ultramarine with the goal that this room would be the "Finding Nemo" bathroom - the only thing missing was Nemo... and the other characters from the movie.
Mom and I have been talking about this project but I wasn't getting to Florida very often and she was in the process of getting the room painted so there wasn't much of a rush, but eventually the prep was done and I've been in Florida a lot lately so it was time to take the plunge. My original plan was to do more than I did this weekend, but the style of these paintings was unlike anything I'd done before** and it took me longer to get the hang of it than I'd expected.
**Replicating the smooth shades of Pixar images in paint is harder than creating flat shapes and outlining them in black. I'm not a traditional painter so there was a learning curve involved, but then the texture of the walls presented another challenge - it looks good, but it reminds me of the brick walls I've had to paint on project sites. Tricky, but possible.
Still, he effort was successful and here are some pictures of the finished product:
This is a mirror-image of the painting that shows more of what the bathroom looks like - do you feel like you're under water?
Here's Mom with her birthday present. She was apprehensive when she saw how big the first sketches of Dory were, but I think she appreciated the finished product.
I'll be keeping photos in my portfolio - not only was this project a lot of fun to do, but I'd be glad to do it for others who would like to put a mural in their own homes... shoot me an email if you're interested!
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