John Hiemstra Creative » Murals

Mural painting finally in Pittsburgh- sort of.

John — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:20:48 +0000

So I’m finally getting to next post in series of the mural I’m painting in right now in new Pittsburgh studio-- if you missed my first post on this mural project, I’m painting it on canvas and (ironically enough) shipping it back to San Diego for installation. Here’s what it will look like:

Well, sort of; we made a modification after best solution became doing it here rather than waiting for me to return to San Diego and paint directly on her walls. The vertical line in the rendering indicates a corner where we were going to wrap the mural two feet onto return wall for complete sight lines, the canvas will only cover the main wall, an area approximately six feet by six feet.

Confused? Then this second rendering should help clarify that the mural will actually be seen through a window; the retuen wall was to complete every possible sightline:

So even though its not really trompe l’oeil painting, its a trompe l’oeil effect of creating the client’s desired landscape view in her workout room that currently looks out onto stucco wall in a light well. Anyone who knows me and my work can see why this is the kind of project I love: rather than a mural pasted onto a room that may or may not deserve one, I like murals that seamlessly disappear as murals by completing a room or experience without pronouncing “I am mural, hear me roar.” Its always more fun when people figure it out a second later.

Exterior trompe l’oeil games are especially gratifying to me and so after six months of exclusively web designing and business building since I moved to Pittsburgh, I’m pretty happy to have a well thought out mural gig, even if it is relatively simple. Once I process some more pix, I’ll get caught up here with what’s really going on in the studio, I’m just about exactly a week behind in my reporting and the actual doing. I expect to finish up this weekend and plan to do some live realtime progress shots of the detail work.

If you’re wondering what kind of website/business stuff I’m doing here, there’s actually a lot to tell, but here’s a link to a site I just completed for a commercial photographer here with pretty spectacular work and a super clean aesthetic, which makes for a nice site if I do say do myself; check it out at edromboutphotography.com.

The other fun part I wanted to mention from last week’s beginning was the arrival of fresh paint from my favorite company, Nova Color in Los Angeles. It truly is the best paint in the world, and its esoteric painter excitement to have a batch of their fresh color to play with; yes I took a picture because its also my plesaure to sing their praises (full disclosure: they don’t pay me a cent for anything I say about them, they’re just the best!)

Vertical blind mural, continued

John — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:28:21 +0000

So here is the finished right hand panel of the San Diego cityscape mural, rendered with lots of patience on a set of vertical blinds for a penthouse apartment with a similar view. Each panel is approx 16′ wide x 8′ high.

Return to the vertical blind cityscape mural

John — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:39:21 +0000

As I get back to work for 2010, I see that I left off any finished pictures of the cityscape mural painted on vertical blinds, my last project in San Diego before coming to Pittsburgh (and actually the first mural pictures I put up when I started out this new and improved mural portfolio last fall) so I’m going to address these next.

This is the left “panel” finished on the floor in the shop. There are sixty actual blinds making up the paint surface/image plane in this photo, each one three and a half inches wide, adding up to an over all span of about sixteen feet by about eight feet tall.

The nighttime view of San Diego looks west up Broadway on the left and down Front Street to the bay on the right.

You can real time posts I made during this projects with progress photos on my blog at johnhiemstra.com/murals-sandiego.

Kids murals | ocean theme room details

John — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:45:45 +0000

Here is a detail shot of third corner treatment in the ocean theme kids room, this time pushing the rocks way out to a point on the horizon.

Kids mural design sample set | circus room

John — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:08:24 +0000

I’m posting a few of the different design pieces I worked up on the way to the cirus themed kids’ playroom I’ve been recently documenting in my murals and faux galleries.

Here is the set of samples just after the design meeting: the large “tent curtain” wall finish sample board, two smaller pieces of the circus-wagon-inspired playroom cabinet finish, and the fabric sample for the window treatments that started it all.

Kids murals | Circus playroom mural details

John — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:43:11 +0000

A couple more pictures now of the completely finished circus playroom trompe l’oeil mural wall. This detail shows the completed ticket box, with some simple trompe l’oeil effects that finish off one of the better playroom decorating ideas I’ve had the pleasure to develop, with a trompe l’oeil mural emerging from and in turn completing the faux finishes in the room.

The letters are shadowed to look carved out and the faux wood grain is a lighter version of the real wood floor and trim in the room. Check out the lions and ringmaster now entertaining the crows on the left and the tickets left on top of the box; in hindsight I wish I’d designed in a little brass padlock holding the box shut and added a long secondary shadow of the tent pole going the other way.

Kids murals | Circus theme hero wall details

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:09:08 +0000

In most of the commercial entertainment work settings of my career, the “hero wall” is either the biggest, showiest feature of the set we were creating, whether a three dimensional feature or painted surface, or the most prominent, first-impression-is-everything element of the set.

Everyone wants to work the hero wall.

So even though there’s lot of work gone into this entire playroom, and this little trompe l’oeil mural is just a part of a larger and more complete faux painting project, this wall (even before painting the trompe l’oeil effect drawing you under the circus tent curtain) is the hero wall, because its where your eye goes first.

Kids murals| Circus tent wall murals continued

John — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:26:03 +0000

Here’s the next stage of development of the trompe l’oeil mural feature of the circus playroom.

The circus tent wall curtain has been developed in volume so that it feels pulled and rolled, and the interior of the mural has been blocked in with an arena “under the big top”. The ticket collection box conveniently supports the right side of the curtain in a moment of “suspended disbelief”.

Kids murals | Circus theme room

John — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:22:37 +0000

The circus themed room I painted in 2008 is one of my favorite projects for one of my favorite clients-- okay, their grandson, actually. This picture (and the next few to be published here) show the development of his playroom trompe l’oeil mural wall, emerging from the circus tent faux wall finishes developed for the rest of the room.

The idea is that the circus tent curtain is being pulled back to reveal the big top show happening inside. Here, the tent wall/curtain has been defined, though the mural image itself has not yet begun.