Hello. Today I have another Church Sunday School Story to share. In a previous post, I shared how I used Digital images to put images on a wall. In this room, everything is freehand. Now, I am not a sketch artist, but I am really good with paint, so other than the rainbow, nothing is drawn on with a pencil, I simply took a sponge and played with paint until I achieved the look I wanted. But before I tell you how I did the room, first I want to explain some history of the room because that has a lot to do with why this design was chosen.
Many years ago, someone wanted to create a more 'edgy' look for the room since it was used for teenagers. At that time 'dripped paint' was really in, so they created a 'dripped paint' border all along the top of the walls going around the perimeter of the room using purple paint. That was it. The top 1/3 of the walls was painted a solid color purple, then there was a distinct line and paint drips down the rest of the wall. Sorry, I have no 'before' pictures. Well, about a year ago we had a church visitor and they entered the room and said 'Ugh, this room is so creepy. It looks like dripping blood'. So then, everyone started to think of the room as creepy or depressing and I was asked to redecorate it. I asked the current Sunday School teacher to ask the kids (pre-teenagers) what theme they would like, and they came up 'A rainbow with Jesus coming back in the clouds'. I said to the teacher 'Well, I could do the rainbow, but I certainly can't draw Jesus. I'm not a artist' and he said 'Just do anything more cheerful and uplifting'. So we started to repaint the walls....guess what? No matter how many coats of primer we used, you could STILL see the paint drips! So then our church handyman re textured the walls. And, you could still see the paint drips! Everyone started to say that the room was cursed. NOT something you want to hear about a room in your church! LOL! So, I have a big problem. HOW do I cover up or disguise those paint drips? My first idea was sponging. So I painted the room a very light blue and started to sponge. After I completed sponging the first wall, I just thought that it looked way too busy. I just couldn't see doing all four walls like that, but I couldn't leave one wall entirely sponged and not do it on the other walls. So in order to blend the sponged wall with the other three un-sponged walls I painted over the bottom portion of the wall with the light blue and left just the top of the wall sponged. I can't explain how I sponged. I just used a medium and darker shade of the same blue I applied to the wall and dabbed till I got the look I wanted. Then, so I didn't have a distinct line from the solid to the sponged part of the wall, I just sponged the lighter two shades. In the picture below you can see the gradient sponging I described.
Now, I want to do the 'second coming' theme the kids requested, without drawing Jesus and making it cheerful and uplifting at the same time. I decided to use the lyrics of a song we sing at church as my theme. I first sponged on clouds by just dabbing on white and grey paint in various shades till I got the look I wanted. Then I drew the rainbow in with a pencil and tried my best to blend the rainbow together so there was no distinct lines Finally I did the sun, again using a sponge and several different shades of yellow and orange. And, none of this was in any particular order. Although I did start with the clouds, I found I had to go back and forth a lot from painting clouds to rainbows, then touching up clouds over the rainbow, then painting the sun and going back to the clouds so that the clouds covered the sun, etc. etc. etc. It was actually a very frustrating and difficult experience for me and many times I cried out to God 'PLEASE HELP ME, I'm not an artist!'And thankfully, HE did, because I could not have done this work without HIM.
After all the artwork was completed, I put the first part of the song on the main mural wall. I did that by printing it on the computer in a font I liked and then projecting it onto the wall.
Now, I had another problem. What do I do with the rest of the room. I felt the mural already was making the room a little busy, but the other walls left blank looked kinda odd. So, I decided to just continue on with the words of the song on the two remaining walls that were windowless.
I found this memo board that had all the colors of the room in it at JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts, so I put that on the wall. I wish it was a little larger so it fit the scale of the room. I could also buy another and just put them next to each other to increase the scale.
There was already a cork strip and dry erase board on the wall that I had to work around, so that affected the placement of my lyrics. I used the same colors that are in the rainbow for the quotes.
The entire room probably took about a month and half to complete working two 8 to 10 hour days a week. Out of all the rooms I have done at the church, this one was the most difficult because of all the paint dripping issues and the free hand aspect, but it is certainly not 'depressing' anymore and is much uplifting and encouraging than it was.
Have a great day! Amy
