How to Paint Scenery
One of the most common areas where parents find help is needed is in how to paint backgrounds or certain aspects which are found in most mural designs, for example, sky. As this type of painting cannot be achieved using a stencil or stamp it often causes concern if you are unsure of your free hand painting skills. I get so many enquiries regarding this subject that on this page I have listed some of the most frequently asked for, 'How to paint....', mural effects.
All the paint effects are easy to achieve, and none require any special skills or expensive tools. All these effects can be used on walls, doors and furniture.
Always prepare your surface as detailed in - Surface Preparation.
Sea
To achieve a sea background, mix white and blue acrylic paint together, but loosely, i.e. so you can still clearly see the white in amongst the blue. Don't mix it up so it becomes a new shade as this will ruin the effect. Then with a brush take a good amount of paint and transfer. As the paint is not properly mixed this will give you the streaky effect that your looking for.
Example of the result
This effect can also be used to paint sky.
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There are a number of different methods to painting clouds so here are a few of the easiest.
Clouds 1
• Firstly paint on your sky. Then take a sea sponge and dip lightly into white paint, dab onto the wall. Then dip the sea sponge, without cleaning it, into the colour you used for the sky, dab lightly over the white. Repeat until you build up the cloud. Use more paint in the centre of the clouds and less on the edges, keep dabbing the edges until they become blurred in with the sky. Leave some blue showing through for a lighter effect.
Example of the result
Clouds 2
• Firstly paint on your sky. Then take a can of white spray paint, make sure your room is well ventilated before you start. Spray cloud shapes onto the wall. Next take a can of very light grey spray paint and lightly spray, slightly overlapping the white. Repeat this process using a very light blue.
You can then lightly re-spray the edges with white to enhance them.
Clouds 3• Firstly using a pencil lightly draw out the cloud shapes. Then take a large brush and apply white paint in rough half moon circles. Fill in the cloud. Then take blue paint and using the same hand movement highlight cloud edges and ridges. Then take the white paint again and lightly paint over the blue to blend.
Example of the result
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Sky
There are a number of different methods to painting sky so here are a few of the easiest.
Sky 1
• Firstly mix white and blue acrylic paint together, but loosely, i.e. so you can still clearly see the white in amongst the blue. Don't mix it up so it becomes a new shade as this will ruin the effect. Then with a brush take a good amount of paint and transfer. As the paint is not properly mixed this will give you the streaky effect that your looking for.
Example of the result
Sky with Clouds 2
• Firstly start with a white background then put blue and white paint into separate containers. Add a small amount of water to thin down a little. Then take a large brush and apply the blue paint by cross hatching the area, as this will not give complete coverage it allows the white base coat to show through. Then take your white paint and paint clouds by applying paint in a cross hatch style in a diagonal direction. Ensure that there is more white paint in the centre of the clouds to give texture, blend in any edges.
Example of the result
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Rainbows
Firstly hammer a very small nail into the wall and tie a string around it. Make the string as long as you want the rainbow to be wide. At the other end of the string attach a small piece of chalk. Take a spirit level and draw a straight horizontal line along the wall, use the nail to give you the guide of where the bottom of the rainbow should end, i.e. it should be no lower than the nail. Then extend the string to it's furthest point on the horizontal line and draw an arc, keeping the string taught. Then shorten the string and repeat the process, keep going until you have a rainbow shape. Paint in your chosen colours.
Example of the result
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