Goodbye drab grey stairwell!
Hello sunshine!
This past week I got the opportunity to do a huge mural of
an oak tree in the stairwell at Oaks International School in Cambridge, UK. Lately,
I have been spending most of my time either cutting out linocuts or sitting in
front of Photoshop on the computer, so I loved being able to get out and get my
hands dirty.
I decided to use a technique for the oak tree that I used on
a previous mural using painters tape to mark off the lines. I think this makes the image look as if it
has actually been cut out, like the linocuts that I so love to make. I also
used wallpaper to make leaves in order to give the tree a bit of texture. Here
are the steps that I used in order to plan, create, and finish this gigantic
tree:
1. First, I needed to plan my design. I took a lot of photos of
oak trees and branches and some pictures of the stairwell on my phone and
then used a basic drawing program on my Ipad to draw a few ideas over the
picture. This also gave me the possibility to show my idea to the school for approval before I got started.
2. Then, I bought all of the necessary materials and got to
work. I used string and a bit of tape to layout my tree design onto the wall.
This way, I had the possibility to lift a branch higher or lower with ease. As
this stairway turns twice on its way up, it was important to see how the actual
tree would look on the actual wall instead of just on my Ipad. 
3. Once I was happy with the design I began taping the
branches and accents. I used the most expensive blue painters tape for fine edges because
it makes a huge difference in comparison to cheap masking tape. Even with the
best tape, there will always be some places where the paint comes off the wall,
but there is nothing worse than having most of the paint come off with the
tape. Blue painters tape is also easy to use.
4. With my tree all taped, I began the first round of painting.
Before I put a paintbrush on the wall, I went around with my finger on all of
the edges and made sure that they were down. This is very important, because
otherwise paint will leak through the little bubbles on the side and look
tacky. If you are really concerned about leakage, you can always paint the
sides of the image with the background color once before you add your top coat.
Any leakage will then be in your background color. Nevertheless, if you are
good about making sure your edges are taped well, this is not necessary.
Because my brown was not very opaque, I actually had to paint the tree twice. 
5. After painting the tree, I added some accents for fun. I put
an owl in the tree, a birdhouse on a branch, and some birds in the air. I
actually had to stop myself from not adding more, as I realized my project
would quickly get out of hand and never finished.
6. Finally, it was time for the leaves. I bought some
inexpensive paintable textured wallpaper and rolled out a few sheets onto the
floor. I then painted these green. Once it had dried, I made my own stencils
and cut out oak leaves in various shapes and sizes. I used basic wallpaper
paste to then glue them onto the wall.
Eventually, the school would like to add words at different
places throughout the tree with the core vales of the school, such as
happiness, aspiration, and community.
The best part of the entire project was listening to the
children as they passed by in the halls. They loved seeing the process and they
were so encouraging. Seeing so many children happy with the result made it
definitely worth the effort. I was very pleased with the result, because it
looks, like I had hoped, as if it was printed on the wall. I look forward to
doing another mural like this in the future.The Oaks International School tree mural is also listed under current projects on my website: kelleydonner.com.
