Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Few Things To Do Before Creating School Mascot Murals

By Jason Fisher


Mascots are objects, animals or persons used to symbolize a group with public identity like brand name, military unit, society, professional sports team and school. They are usually confused with their team nicknames, although they could be interchangeable at times. These can adopt the form of costumed characters, inanimate objects, live animals, persons or logos.

Schools display their images all around the campus to increase the morale of students and remind visitors of where they are. Their costumes are usually worn during sports and social events and others have school mascot murals painted somewhere everyone could see. Here are several things you need to do when you want to create one.

Ensure the wall that murals will be painted on is clean and have no moisture damage or any structural problems. If you notice several cracks then spackle them though it may have hidden issues that would eventually cause it to have cracks again. Closely check for presence of wax, dirt, mold, grease or oil and have them thoroughly cleaned.

Prime the wall because it would help in letting the paint stick more easily and could be applied directly over already existing drawings. Although if you want your mural to last longer then some preparatory measures should be done before painting. Acrylic coats adhere better and longer when the existing ones are stripped with sanding block dip in a mild solution to lessen the dust.

Allow the wall to properly dry and apply on its entirety after the acrylic primer and you may now start painting directly. You can add texture also like plaster application and create intriguing surface but its effect on the final result will not be sure. If you prefer painting on an unstretched canvass then first, glue it one before it is painted.

When painting, sketch your design first based on your prepared image and enlarge it with techniques like grid method or art projector using a pencil. After having an outline then begin underpainting that consists of huge blocks of color which more details will be painted over later. Then use mural techniques, similar to painting ones, to put the details.

Sponging is good for creating texture like clouds on the sky and leaves on trees and a color could be sponged on another to create more depth. This technique is useful for quickly filling colors in large areas. Wet your sponge first then squeeze excess water out and lightly dip it to the paint, softly blot it on some paper to avoid overloading of paint.

Stippling is done through applying thin coats of either a lighter shade or darker one over a dried underpainting. Use stippling brush while that new coat is still wet and dab it around until the new layer is stippled. The result would not look brushed if done correctly and some underpainting will be seen.

When the mural is finished, next is protecting and ensuring its beauty would stay longer with seals. Apply isolation coats and varnish with either matte sheen or satin one because glossy are reflective. Check the instructions in its bottle for the right varnish and water ratio.




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