Mural 101-Grid Method

Hello! 
I'm hoping to start utilizing this space to do more in depth writing about current projects and musings again. I've had some folks ask how to start thinking about making murals and that's a big question but I thought I'd share a bit about how I translate finished designs to walls for community paint days. The method I use when the wall is 6ft tall and smaller is a grid method. Many of us have used the grid method for projects in elementary or middle school and probably have never touched it again. I like the grid as a place to start especially when I'm working with youth. Below is an example of my design for Lincoln Middle School. I measured the wall and rendered the drawing in Photoshop to match the size. If I'm not projecting, I don't usually worry too much about resolution and set my dpi to 150 and translate each foot of the wall to inches. It's important to start with a precise measurement of the wall. In Photoshop there is an option under Extras to show a grid. You can adjust the size of the grid by either double clicking your ruler OR accessing preferences and going to the units and measurements or grids and slices area. I set the grid to be 1inch by 1 inch. I prefer to use 1:1 square grids while other like to use different ratios. I usually then label the rows with the alphabet and the columns with numbers. Below I have one portion of the wall represented in the sketch. 

To translate the drawing you move square by square and examine the points where your drawing lines intersect with the the grid. In this case. In the photo above you can see the grid in pencil. This grid was 12inx12in. So effectively, I scaled the 1x1inch squares to 1ftx1ft. Here is a helpful video that goes into more detail about grid drawing: ​​

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This mural was verrrrrry long so I printed out sections and taped up the reference sketch along each segment. I also sketched out the drawing myself for the students since we didn't have much time and I wanted them to focus on painting. I usually sketch a drawing out with watered down yellow ochre or quin red. In this case I knew most of my flowers would be yellow and red so that helped reinforce where students were ate in the reference photo . 

Here is a wider view of the fully sketched out mural: ​

Once the drawing is translated, I find that labeling colors is the next most important step to making sure your community paint day goes smoothly. The first step is identifying your colors and mixing them and carefully labeling your containers. Rather than writing out the full name of the color, I usually use a combination of letters and numbers. If I have more than one yellow, they become Y1, Y2, Y3 etc. We had too many blues to keep track of so we ended up using shapes to identify those. I use takeout containers to store all my paints and I prefer to mix my own colors. I always use NovaColor paints UNLESS there is a reason to have to use something else. I'll go into this in another post. 

Now that my colors are mixed, I label the elements of the mural accordingly with the corresponding color. 

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Once the wall is labeled, I find it's very easy for anyone to join in on the fun of painting!