Murals are usually larger works of art

Wallpaper murals are usually larger works of art. Anything wall size or ceiling size is classified as a mural. There are interior and exterior murals. Some are painted on the sides of barns as well as buildings, fences, etc. Some are done on framed canvas and hung on walls. People buy them to decorate their homes or maybe a restaurant.

Businesses may buy large canvas-framed murals or have one painted directly on an interior wall or the outside of their building. Again, some murals can be large canvas framed works (done in a shop) to fit a large accent wall or they can be hand painted right directly onto a wall or ceiling. Sign painting on a larger scale is pretty much like mural painting. I had a friend who went into the sign painting business. I saw one of his works where he painted a large sign on the side of a beer store that had their name and logo painted onto the brick along with a nice background and border. Even though the wall of an average beer store isn't huge it still has to be planned or graphed out to make all the letters and graphics fit perfectly. HOW TO CREATE MURALS There is no right way or wrong way to paint a mural. It is all practice and technique. There may not be too many books out there on the subject of a mural painting business. It is recommended that you just start to experiment. I would suggest digging through books on the sign painting business. As mentioned above, some painted signs can take up a whole side of a building.






Murals are created differently from smaller works because of their size. Before you can paint or draw out a large mural, you have to plot out the project you are working on. Larger works like a 25-foot building can make you feel more like a house painter than an artist. A mural needs to be planned and blocked out in squares. First on a sketch pad (planning pad) and then on the work being painted. Planning pads have sheets with tiny 1/4-inch squares. A wall or ceiling mural needs to be divided up into 1-foot squares.


Each of those small 1/4-inch squares on your planning pad represent a square foot on the wall or building. You can even fold the paper in half, and fold it in half one more time (called quartering it) and this will show you your center mark. The best advice for creating a mural is to step back frequently and take a look at your progress from a distance to make sure everything is in proportion. As my dad taught me in drafting, you want to first find the center point and work outward from there when setting up your blueprint or in this case, a mural. Sketching out your design after you set up your grid pattern of squares and finding your center point is necessary.