step one: brainstorm with the mural advisory group
Form a Mural Advisory Group that can decide on the theme of the mural. This group should be small, 2-4 people, because too many cooks in the kitchen can result in a very contentious mural-planning process, or a mural that tries to encompass too many ideas. At a school, people in this group can be the principal, interested teachers, and a member of the PTA. In a community setting, this can be highly involved community members and representatives from local businesses, organizations and religious centers. The mural advisory group will meet and discuss the theme for the mural, and any stylistic preferences they might have.
step two: make the blueprints for the mural
Have a session with the mural-makers in which you discuss the theme for the mural and explain why you are making a mural. This involves collecting drawings based on the theme. Sometimes two drawing sessions are necessary, in order to collect enough images to fill a large space. With both murals we're painting, we rented books from the library with lots of imagery that fit with our themes, and had students look through the books and make drawings based on the images.
After collecting their drawings, I traced them on vellum, simplifying details to make the drawings easier to project on a wall later. When looking at a painting from far away, your eye automatically blends colors and fills in details, so less detail is better.
You can now scan the tracings into the computer and arrange/size the images in Photoshop to make a layout for the mural.
step three: project the image onto your painting surface
So, you need a projector for this. This is the easier way to do it. You can also make a grid on top of your original image, then draw the same grid scaled up on the wall. You then have to draw the entire image over again, supersized, square by square. But luckily we have a projector here and we can just project it and then trace the lines in light-colored paint.
Tracing the projected image
step four: create a palette
This is a good way to get mural-makers familiar with mixing paint. You can squeeze a lesson about the color wheel in here, too. For instance, ask students to mix only secondary colors. Then ask them to mix tertiary colors. Challenge the mural-makers to not use any paint directly out of the tube to make their palettes, and to mix unique colors. Then, line up all the palettes and have everyone vote on their favorite colors from each. Those can be the colors you use for your mural.
The palettes we made and then voted on.
This is as far as we've gotten with the murals we're working on right now. I'll post more steps as we complete them!
