Mice in the nursery!
I’m so excited for my friend Meg and her husband Pat, who very recently brought home their adopted son Van, from Vietnam. While they were overseas, I worked on a mural in Van’s room-to-be. Before they’d left, I’d done a full sketch of what I was going to paint, accommodating the room’s specs and the furniture placement:
Meg has a book called “Ten Mice for Tet“, which is about Vietnamese New Year, and she wanted to use it as inspiration for the room. Also, Van is a water buffalo in Vietnamese astrology, so I wanted to include something to that effect too.
I used acrylic paints for the colours. For the outlines, I used a Sharpie Paint marker (the biggest size: Bold), and it worked like an absolute dream. Here’s one of the mice before and after I outlined him… huge difference!
The markers come in water-based or oil. I chose the oil-based at the recommendation of various stores I asked — it’s opaque (the water-based one isn’t) and more permanent. It does mean that Meg and Pat should sand the outlines down if they ever repaint the room.
Wall 1 — with Van’s name and the dragon:
I used a silver acrylic paint for the scales… so it was a little tough to photograph.
Wall 2 — which is mainly window, but I did put this lantern up near the ceiling, overtop the shelf of stuffed animals. The gold flowers are also Sharpie marker.
Wall 3 — the musicians and the foodies!
Closer up…
And Wall 4 — the water buffalo and the flagbearer.
And this is Pepper the cat, whom I kinda fell in love with. I think she approves…
[Technical detail for anyone who plans on painting a mural with acrylic paints: the paints are transparent, so if the wall is not white, you'll need to put on a few extra coats of acrylic for the colours to show up properly.]
Welcome home Van — you are a lucky kiddo to have such fabulous parents as Meg & Pat!
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