I started painting murals for my family in 2019 as a way to bring life to parts of their yards where nothing would grow. With my first couple murals I learned a lot about paints, prepping, and how long the process would actually take. My very first mural is included here so you can see some of that learning process.
Click on the thumbnails below to view larger images and before/afters. Please reach out if you are interested in commissioning a piece!
This project was a bit different: I helped Lilly Adams, an 8th grade Girl Scout Cadet, paint a wildflower mural on a historic teepee for her Silver Award service project. By the time I joined them, Lilly and her family had been hard at work for nearly a year to restore the teepee! She had already planned the project, solicited donations, replaced the teepee's siding, painted on the blue and tan base coat, and started work on the camp latrines inside. She is still adding solar lights and screen, then the project will be done.
For the mural we used a mix of exterior paints and acrylics. We worked in layers to paint the grass, greenery, and flowers, building up to complex shadows and highlights on each individual bloom. Since it's fairly early in the year we had to watch for good weather and jump at any opportunities.
The teepee has been standing since 1957. It is almost as old as Camp Carefree itself, which was established in 1953 when the US Department of Agriculture first allowed the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming to use their land. If you are in Cheyenne and want to see the teepee and mural it is visible from the corner of Round Top Road and Water Plant Road.
In the second photo you can see some of the prep work that went into this mural. Prepping, painting, and drying in between took a few more days than planned, but the results were worth it! The new white paint looked bright and clean and the real canna lilies mixed right in with my painted ones.
This bedroom looks out at a wall that is only a few feet away from the window! Using real potted plants, even hanging ones, would have made the alley inaccessible. Because this mural is seen from so close it has a lot of detail. The pink bushes look centered while walking into the room, and the purple flowers to the right are visible while getting in/out of bed.
This was my first mural, painted for my parents. That propane tank is very visible and nothing would grow near it; we had talked about putting something on it for quite a while! I used leftover outdoor enamel from other projects and you can see that the leaves' edges got cleaner as I worked from left to right. It was so much fun that I started practicing for bigger projects, and my parents enjoyed seeing those flowers out the window until they moved.
More artwork will be added once I get everything unpacked and my scanner back up and running. For now, enjoy the life drawings.
Click on the thumbnails below to view larger images. If you are interested in an art print please reach out!
During college I was lucky to take a life drawing class from special effects animator Kathleen Quaife-Hodge. In her class we focused on capturing form, motion, and lighting quickly. Some of these poses were only held for 30 seconds! For the anatomy studies we usually had five minutes to make a sketch and then we would finish them at home using anatomy models and textbooks. These drawings are presented in (roughly) the same order in which we learned the techniques. Clicking each image will take you to a collection of drawings from my final portfolio.
