While we’re getting settled in our new city and fighting our way through mountains of cardboard, I thought I’d share a fun dinosaur mural that we painted in our old house. It’s really a really simple technique that you could apply to all sorts of designs.
This project doesn’t take much. You probably have most of these supplies at home. For $8.73 I was able to give my son’s room a fun feature wall. Now that’s a huge budget saver!!
Supplies:
If you buy through one of my affiliate links below, it won’t cost you a penny more, but I do get a tiny commission. That means you get great, vetted supplies AND the satisfaction of knowing you supported an emerging artist today. #win!
- Photocopies of your design
- Chalk
- Pencil
- Tape measure
- Water-based paint markers – like this or these
- Painter’s tape
- Level
Planning…
First, you’ll want to choose your design. I went with origami dinosaurs. I found a really cute wallpaper that I loved, but with a new baby on the way I simply could not afford it. So, we used it as inspiration and created a minimalistic dinosaur mural.
I made several photocopies of our dinosaur designs. How many you need will truly depend on what you’re choosing to do. Think about the size of the wall and the size of the design. My dinosaurs were about 3×6 inches, and I had 6 copies of each dinosaur. That worked well for us and made it easier to lay them out and choose a pattern. Also, it meant there would be less climbing up and down the ladder, and at 8 months pregnant, that was a win. (I should note, that I was being very safe and had a lot of help from my friend Emily for both the ladder and this project!! She’s a rockstar. Love you, Em!)
We worked on the wall from top to bottom. After measuring the wall we decided our first line needed to start 10 inches down from the top. We used the center of the dinosaurs’ bodies to align them on the line. Then each row thereafter was 10 apart from the center of the dinosaurs.
Painters tape worked well to mark where the lines would go without having to add any pencil markings to the wall.
Just be careful that your “helper” doesn’t start making any decisions without you. Haha!
Adding the Dinosaurs to the wall…
We’re going to use a simple transfer technique to create the mural.
Flip the copies of your design over and hold them up to a window. Trace the shape of your design and make sure it is well coated well in chalk.
Gently now! Place your templates in the desired location with the chalk side touching the wall, and tape them down in a few spots with painter’s tape. Do not slide these templates around…you’ll make a mess and the tracing won’t work as well for you.
You’ll trace your design again. This time with a pencil.
Carefully peel away the paper after your template has been traced. You’ll use it again, so just set it to the side. Woo hoo!! Now you should see a chalk outline of your design on the wall!
The next step is to trace over the chalk outline with a paint marker. You want to make sure you use a water-based paint marker and NOT an oil-based paint marker.
There are a couple of big differences between the two.
- Dry time. Water-based markers will dry more quickly.
- The biggest reason though, is you want your design to act like the wall paint you’re adding it onto. If you were to use an oil-based marker and then try to cover it with a new coat of wall paint, later when you’re ready for a change, it would start doing funky things like repelling the paint or peeling. So, it’s best to just use a water-based paint marker! It’s easy to tell the difference, it should be right there on the packaging.
NOTE:
We used three markers for the whole project and they all had paint leftover in them. The reason we went through three was, the tip on one of the markers started to separate and quit making clean lines. You may be able to get by with just one marker for your entire project, but I would recommend having a spare just in case the tip starts to split.
Last step! After everything has dried wipe up any remaining chalk with a damp paper towel.
That’s it!
I hope you enjoyed this minimalistic dinosaur mural. It’s tedious but very easy, doable, and totally worth it.
Be sure to share your mural projects @SarahLabsArt on Instagram or Facebook. I can’t wait to see what you come up with! 🙂
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