In this discovery process of mine, I have found that I have a true passion for decorating. I took four days this week to paint a background for a Super Mario Brother's Themed Bedroom for my soon-to-be 7 year old boy. Thank you darling husband for watching the kids from 7-9 and letting me work until 1am every day, except for yesterday when I stayed up until 2:30am. Also thank you to my neighbors for not calling the cops with my music blaring until the wee hours of the morning. And finally, thank you to my kids who let me sleep in until 9:10am this morning.
I will post another blog with pictures of the room with the fun smiley clouds from Super Mario All Stars and the Jumbo Character Stickers I purchased at ThinkGeek.com another day, but for now I'll show you some before and after pictures of the hills that I painted. Keep in mind that I am not a professional wall muralist, just a regular mom trying to create something fun for my boy (and hopefully something useful and interesting to those of you that need ideas on how to make a fun space for your homes).
Before:
Here is a little bit of a paint test (that I didn't use) and the tape is the outline for the hills.
After:
(and what a difference I must say!)
Just a fresh coat of blue all over the walls and then variations of the same color of blue (I used 1 gallon and 1 pint of the wall color, which I color matched at my local Home Depot from a favorite poster. I also used 2 pints of Swiss Coffee as my white, but I should have just dished out for the gallon. It would have saved me money in the long run). The darkest hills are two parts wall color, one part white. The lighter hills are one part wall color, one part white.
Of course in Super Mario World there is shading on the side of the hills. This is the part that gave me the biggest headache. I used a ruler and some gentle painter's tape to create the three layers of shadow on the right. The lightest shadow is 2", the medium shadow is the size of a thin piece of painter's tape (a little over 2cm), and the darkest shadow is 1". From the center of the arch down to the beginning of the shadows I drew in the angle.
To create the colors I took equal parts of the base color of the hill and added the mixture for the darkest hills (two parts wall color, one part white). For the second shade I did one part original hill color and two parts darkest hill. For the third shade on the lightest hill I used the darkest hill color. For the third shade on the darkest hills I actually used a separate darker blue acrylic paint in the same undertone to outline. I couldn't use the wall color to darken the shades because I wanted the hills to stand out from the walls. Very technical.
To create the spots I used Microsoft Publisher and created a full page oval and printed it out. I cut out the oval and then traced it on the walls filling in with lighter shades of the wall color. The lightest dots are two parts white, one part wall color. The darker spots are the same shade as the light hills (one part wall color, one part white).
