July 8, 2009
I’m really really proud of the Dr. Seuss mural that we painted for the nursery. My brother (Matt) and I worked together on the concept and the painting and the outlining of the Dr. Seuss characters for what seemed like countless hours, days, weeks, etc. I really want to thank him for all of his help – his work on the mural will truly be a major gift to London that will be around for a while. Everyone who sees it just loves it!
I emphasize, again, that this was no easy task. As you’ll be able to tell, we had to take this process step by step. First, of course, was just the base/background color of blue. Then we did a chalk outline of all of the characters on the blue paint.
The third step is to start filling in the colored sections, one color at a time. This was an uneasy step, because you could kind of see the character start to form, but they were still just an undefined blob of color for the most part.
And the fourth step was the most time intensive, but the most gratifying. We added all of the black outline that you see in the photos. Some of the characters, like the Cat in the Hat, have a lot of black to them. But once that black outline goes down, the character suddenly became alive! We used a black ink, rather than a black paint or a black Sharpie marker. It’s a little high-gloss at times, as you may spot in a couple of the photos (in fact, you’ll notice most photos are taken from a slight side angle, or else there was a glare on the black ink), but it looked so great. You’ll notice that we have the following characters: The Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2 (from the Cat in the Hat), Horton (Horton Hears a Who), Sam (Green Eggs and Ham), Balloon boy (Oh, The Places You’ll Go!), The Sneetches, and “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.”
I’ve included photos from each of our stages of creating this mural (when I remembered to grab the camera), so you can really see the transformation. The experience of creating this mural with my brother is one that I’ll remember and cherish for years to come. It turned out SO good. It feels like you’re standing in a children’s storybook. I hope you all get an opportunity to come see it in person some time.
