If this is the sunset image for your mural, drop the horizon line for more visual interest.
A dramatic, bold sunset washes the sky in reds, pinks, oranges and purples and creates a mood that is both serene and heady. Bring this mood into your home by painting a sunset mural over a wall. Choose a wall without doors or windows for this project and make sure that the area gets plenty of traffic, since you'll want to show off your DIY sunset mural once you complete it.
Instructions
1. Search the Internet, landscape photography magazines and your own photo collections for a striking sunset image. Choose an unfussy image with few details; too-detailed wall murals can look too busy and distract the eye.
2. Cover the floor and furniture in the room with drop cloths and tape off outlets and fixtures with painter's tape.
3. Prepare your wall. An uneven, pock-marked wall makes a poor canvas for a wall mural, so fill cracks and holes with joint compound, sand off flaking paint and cover the entire surface with a coat of primer. Allow your work to dry before proceeding.
4. Choose a background color. For a sunset, choose a yellow or orange background color. Roll the color onto your wall and allow the paint to dry. Also choose the remainder of your colors, which should focus on reds, oranges, yellows and purples.
5. Measure your wall from floor to ceiling. Mark a dot 1/3 of the way to the ceiling from the floor with a pencil. This is your horizon line. According to the author of, "Paint Tropical Sunsets, " Gina De Gorna, you should avoid placing your horizon at the center of the wall, since it creates less visual interest.
6. Draw a horizontal pencil line across the wall at the mark you just made. Use a long level to keep the line perfectly straight. Apply a line of paint over the pencil line but be less precise. You want the line to be straight but slightly blurred since the horizon is in the distance. Use a darker color from your chosen hues, since the horizon line should be slightly darken than the land or water below it. Rough up a too-sharp horizon line with a dry brush.
7. Paint the sky. Use a large sponge to apply the colors in the sky in a horizontal, back and forth and imprecise motion. Vary the amounts of paint on your sponge to create darker and lighter streaks in the sky. Use darker colors near the ceiling and lighter colors as you approach the horizon. Blend each layer of color together with a sponge.
8. Paint the landscape or water using a large paintbrush and a limited number of colors. You want the sunset to take center stage, so focus on the general shapes in the landscape or on the water. Make sure the horizon line stays slightly darker than the area below it.
9. Streak light yellow into the painting over the area where the sun just set.
10. Lightly pencil in any large shapes from your sunset picture, such as a grouping of palm trees, mountains in the distance or a mass of clouds. Paint the underside of clouds with a darker color, and sponge white over the shadows to create soft, rounded cloud shapes. Paint distant mountains in the same color as the sky, but use a darker tone. Paint palm trees or other landscape elements in silhouette to keep them simple and unobtrusive.
11. Bring colors from your sky onto the shapes you just painted to give the painting a cohesive look and to make the sunset look authentic.
12. Examine your reference images and determine where the light from your just-set sun would hit the different shapes in your mural, such as the tops of mountains or on the top of water. Add light yellow to these areas.
