If you’ve been following me on social media, you’ll have seen my Wisteria journey over the new year. Just before Christmas I decided in the space of 10 minutes, that I wanted to paint a mural on the wall of my craft room. So after searching pinterest, fo all of 10 minutes again, I decided that I could do it. I’ve never painted a mural before, in fact I haven’t painted a picture since my GCSE art exam 16 years ago. But there is always a method for everything, as long as I could get a method going, I could do it. Now hopefully, I can put into words how I did it for those who are wanting to try it themselves!
So here is a close up of the Wistera, it was all completely painted freehand, no stenciling, I did originally draw the lines on for the branches and wisteria in pencil, but I soon stopped once I became more confident. My walls were already recently painted with a silk emulsion, which really helped when I had to remove the odd mistake, as I was able to use kitchen wipes to do so. I used acrylic paint I picked up from Hobbycraft to do the mural, I used a white, pink, two different tones of purple, two different tones of green and two different tones of brown. I did use other colours to create the trunk of the plant near the door, but that’s a lot more complicated and not something you have to do.
Remember you can draw it out in pencil first, but you’re going to need to draw the branch, i paint this in strokes to help create texture, and use both browns at once, I do go back later and go over with a really light brown to add a highlight. Make sure to paint small branches off the larger one, and then with the green create a long wavy line hanging down for the wisteria.
So I’m no artist, and everything I put in this tutorial, is probably going to be technically incorrect, but hopefully you will get the idea! I used a flat acrylic brush to create the leaves, swapping between the different greens, as well as mixing white, and using both together. Using the tip of the brush I would apply pressure, move down or up, depending on the direction of the leaf, and then lifting to release. This then creates the leaf shape, if you are worried about doing this, practice on paper first, I’d suggest putting on the wall, as working on a table does feel different. If this is still boggling your mind, have a search on youtube, how to paint leaves with acrlyic, and you should find a few videos there! Once the leaves dry, I would go back and using a darker green, paint the lines down the middle of the leaf, to add detail and depth.
Try to keep the greens mixed, as it’s instant detail when you create the leaf. My brush would be a little wet, before I picked up the acrlyic, just to allow a little more movement in the paint. One thing I would recommend, is having kitchen roll handy, so that you can keep giving your brushes a clean, and then removing the extra water. If the brush becomes to clogged up, the leaf shapes become quite clumpy. Just keep adding leaves all up the branch, I would even add some away from the branch, then paint a stem from that leaf to the other leaf or branch. Just keep filling it up, until it feels right.
Now we need to paint the green inside the Wisteria, you don’t see this much once it finished, so don’t worry too much about how it looks, but it just stops the flowers looking like they are floating. Make sure to paint downwards and to get smaller as you get to the bottom.
I then used a flat angled brush for the flowers
Then using a dark purple we ned to create the background of the flowers, so move the brush up in the direction of the middle of the wisteria, this is going to create the correct hanging shape to the flowers, and provide the first layer for us. Make sure to only make small marks at the bottom of the plant, as the flowers will be smaller at this part.
I then dip my brush into white and purple, its okay to also mix up a more lighter purple too. I never did any flower the same, I would alter between darker ones, ones that were more lilac toned, I even mixed in a little pink sometimes.
You are then going to paint over the top of the darker purple with your lighter shade. Remember they are naturally lighter at the top, just make sure you are always moving in that same direction up and towards the middle. Make sure you leave gaps to make it look more natural, but don’t worry if you go wrong with the colour, just load your brush up again, and go over the top, you are building up layers of colour here, to create depth and shape to the flower. If you go really wrong on anywhere on this, and you are painting onto a silk emulsion like I did, you can use kitchen wipes to wipe the paint away. Be careful though, and test the wipes somewhere on the wall first, some wall paints may not be wipeable and may come off.
Now just keep building up the branches, leaves and flowers, concentrate on one area and work your way out. I would always go back to areas too and add in more leaves as well.
I found referencing photos of actual wisteria whilst doing it really helped.
Let me know what you think, would you try this yourself? Maybe even a little mural on a piece of furniture could be good! Thank you for coming along on yet another project with me. And don’t worry, I’ll soon be posting how I stripped the fireplace in this room, as I get asked all the time on facebook!
Much Love
Natasha x
