Few Things To Do Before Creating School Mascot Murals

By Jason Fisher


Mascots are persons, objects or animals used for symbolizing a group which has public identity such as professional sports team, society, brand name, school and military unit. They are confused usually with the nicknames of their team though they can sometimes be interchangeable. These adopt the forms of persons, live animals, costumed characters, logos, and inanimate objects.

Schools display the images all across the campus for increasing morale of students or reminding visitors of their current location. Their costumes are worn usually during social and sports events and others paint school mascot murals on walls where everyone can see them. Here are a few things to do when you plan or were assigned on creating one.

Make sure the wall where you will paint the murals is clean and does not have any structural problems or moisture damage. If you notice some cracks, spackle them but sometimes it has hidden issues which will cause cracks again eventually. Check closely for the presence of grease, oil, wax, dirt or mold and clean them thoroughly.

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, first sketch your design with a pencil based upon the prepared image then enlarge it with art projector or grid method techniques. After doing the outline, begin underpainting, which consist of large blocks of color that more details are painted on after. You could use mural techniques which are similar to the painting ones for putting 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 with applying thin coats in either darker or lighter shade over the underpainting when it has dried. When this new coat s wet still, use stippling brush and dab around that new color until this layer is stippled. When done correctly, the result would look not brushed and you will see through some underpainting.

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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