Town and Country Mural Details: Town

The town-and-country mural was a two-month project, which has previously been blogged here. I painted it between October 2012 and January 2013. The space to be covered was about 162 x 8 feet, or four walls. Two of the walls were 51-foot spaces (with one of them being broken by a central, double door and two windows. The two short walls were about 30 feet, broken by several doors and stairwells. One long wall and a short wall were to be country themed. The other long wall and short wall were to be town themed. The client chose the colors for the town theme and painted the flat colors for me. Here are some of the final photos of the mural.

Double door, painted blue, accessorized by a faux roof, columns, and lanterns

The double doors, above, are in the center of the outside long wall, to the left side of the sweet-shop theme shown in the photo at the top of this post. There is a real window between the two elements, with a faux shutter painted on either side (pictured at bottom of post). We painted the central doors blue. I added a faux roof with coppery-brown "shingles," two columns, and two painted lanterns. The lanterns were inspired by decorative lanterns at Cohutta Springs Conference Center in Crandall, Georgia. The left-hand column has a thermostat and light switch. I added a decorative element on the right-hand column as a balance for the thermostat, but left the light switch "as is," and did not add a balancing element for it. I added bricks here and there to indicate a brick or brick-and-stucco wall. Below are details of the faux bay window for the sweet-shop theme.

Ice cream - detail of the candy-shop window

Two details of the faux candy-shop window: honey pot (above left) and doughnuts (above right)

Mural, townside - faux bay window, as a toy shop

The faux bay window above matches the candy-shop element. This element is on the left side of the blue double doors of the room. There is a real window between the double doors and the toy shop area. I added a strip of cream-colored cornerstones to indicate the end of one shop and the beginning of another. On the left side of the toy shop is its sign, and then another real window, decorated by faux shutters, painted red. The toys are traditional. The toy at top, center is a Tinker Toy ferris wheel. I was surprised to learn that modern children would not be familiar with Tinker Toys ~ but we decided to leave the Tinker Toys in place. Originally, I had some additional church-themed toys, such as Jonah and the whale, but they didn't quite fit the space I had prepared for them. I left them out. I did include a slingshot, an angel, and a Noah's Ark.

Below, two metal closet doors are disguised as a "glass" music-room door and a plain "library" door, as requested by the client. These areas are the designated music and book areas of the classroom. An upright piano (not pictured) sits out to the front, left side of the music-room door. An actual library cart sits under the Ten Commandments framed poster.

Closet doors disguised as glass and wooden doors

The photo at left is a close-up of a metal closet door, painted to look like a music-room door. This section of the church classroom is designated as a music area, and has room for an upright piano and music stands. At right is a shutter, painted on the left side of a real window on the opposing wall.

The two closet doors are on one of the short walls of the room. To the left of these doors is a stairwell. The right-hand corner of the wall represents the end of the town side. It has one thin, orange edge (representing an exterior corner of a building). There is greenery and a sleeping fawn. Just to the right of the fawn is the actual corner (inside wall corner). A big tree is painted in the very corner. The pond begins behind the fawn and turns the corner to start the long, long country side of the room.

Country side of mural

Note: Made corrections on date; apparently I finished this in Jan. 2013, having worked on it from Nov. 2012 - Jan. 2013, according to previous blog posts. I published these additional photos after the fact and adjusted the date to the wrong year! I have now made that correction.