Mural, Mural on the Wall

September 19, 2008 4:17 AM

Help me think of mural ideas!

We have a 1/2 finished section of our basement. Two of the walls are fairly nice older plank wood paneling. The other two walls are cinderblock. The cinderblocks are in great condition and are currently primed white.

Id like to paint a mural with a HUGE caveat - it has to be dead simple.

To give you an idea of the level of simplicity I am going for here are a couple initial thoughts I had -

- Alternating red, blue, yellow, green on the cinderblocks
or
- Paint a bunch of big 2 color cartoon trees, with an occasional birdy or beehive

The area is kinda split into two rooms, one part has a bar area and the other is a library area with a bunch of bookshelves, but I'd like it to be one mural going all the way across.

I'd like the mural to be friendly enough that the library area is welcoming and comfortable but adultish enough that it fits with a bar area.

Help me pimp my cinderblocks!

posted by ian1977 to home & garden (11 comments total)

A woman giving birth to herself.
posted by watercarrier at 4:23 AM on September 19, 2008

Alternating red, blue, yellow, green on the cinderblocks - do not do this.

Find a picture you like. There are software programs that will turn it into paint-by-numbers. Use a projector to put it on the wall; trace the lines. Paint in the colors. Or use the Rasterbator to pirnt a giant image. Bad murals are much worse than a blank wall.
posted by theora55 at 4:51 AM on September 19, 2008

Tetris
posted by b33j at 5:11 AM on September 19, 2008

Geometric cubes (they're really hexagons, so quite easy once you have a template.)
posted by b33j at 5:14 AM on September 19, 2008

Clouds?
posted by b33j at 5:16 AM on September 19, 2008

What about painting it black and sticking on glow in the dark stars, moons and spaceships? do the same thing to the ceiling while you're at it.
posted by b33j at 5:19 AM on September 19, 2008

The cartoon landscape is nice. We moved into a house that already had a mural in one of the bedrooms. It's got trees, barns, hills, critters, kids, inchworms, etc. And, at night, there's glow in the dark stars. We stare at it all the time, finding little oddities here and there.
posted by ick at 5:24 AM on September 19, 2008

Browse through this and paint them randomly but evenly distributed over the wall and about the same size as each other in black. It should arouse some conversation.
posted by b33j at 5:25 AM on September 19, 2008

Building on what theora55 is suggesting, and based on what I saw a friend do recently -- find 8-10 family photos you like from different eras or generations, use a paint-by-number program to make them 'paintable' and create a family history mural.

Takes some time and effort, but not as much artistic talent as you might expect.
posted by OilPull at 6:26 AM on September 19, 2008

If I were you, I think I'd do stencil art. This place has nice designs, and there's a "stencil painting guide" pdf on that page with color ideas.
posted by taz at 7:47 AM on September 19, 2008

oh, and instructions.
posted by taz at 7:49 AM on September 19, 2008