The Artful Stencil project by Joni Prittie

If you have ever longed for a quiet time on a remote tropical island, this may be the project for you. Our tropical garden mural project with

wild ginger, bird of paradise, fragrant orchids and beautiful lemonwhite cockatoos sets the mood for your very own island sanctuary.

This mural has endless variations. You can use just the lush leaves in our tropical collection to create a true

jungle feeling. We even have a sweet little monkey! You can use ourstencils to create a border around the top of walls, trailing the leaves

here and there.

Of course, furniture is also a great surface for stenciling. Whenstenciling on furniture, be sure to use an appropriate paint forthe surface to be stenciled. Water based paints are good on

pieces painted with a base coat of acrylic or water based paints.Use oil based paints on furniture that has been treated with an

oil base paint.

Tropical Garden Mural

Stenciling a Mural BasicsBecause each mural is an individual art project, determined by your room size,furniture, windows and lighting, here are the basics of creating a mural using

stencils from The Artful Stencil collection.Mural Materials:

Stencils of your choice. Our tropical collection stencils are featured in this project - Cocatoo, Orchid 1, Gnger and Bird of Paradise were used. It is amazing how large a mural one can design with only four stencils!

Acrylic paint - enough paint to stencil your colors consistently. If you are mixing colors, be sure to have enough to stencil all the flowers in thatcolor range. Mixing colors in a small jar is a great idea.

Wall paint - It is an excellent idea to have an amount of your wall paint for touch uparound stencil shapes in case stencil has any bleed areas.

Stencil brushes - medium and largeblue painter's tape - paper towels and small bowl of water for brush cleaning - pencil if you need to mark stencil placement -med watercolor brush for touchup Step 1Measure the wall to be decorated and take into consideration how your mural design will work with furniture placement.

Step 2Choose a mural "theme". This can be as simple as a single stencil repeatedin the same or coordinating colors on the wall or an all over garden mural suchas our tropical garden.

Select the stencils you feel really work together. Remember that a stencilsuch as our bird of paradise flowers can be turned over and stenciled withthe flowers facing in the reverse direction. This allows for an area to be"framed" by the design.Measure the size of your stencil/s and be sure the scale of the stenciledimage will work for your wall space.Note: We used our orchid stencil as a repeat around the framed wall hangingand stenciled extra single orchids to fill in the design.

Tropical Garden Mural

copyright - Joni Prittie 2011

Tropical Garden MuralStep 3Begin by using blue painter's tape to secure stencil to the wall. Tape around stencil edges and in the case of a large stencil, pieces of tape can be placedacross some of the stencil holes and removed as you stencil. This will securethe stencil tightly to the wall. You will be using your paint on a vertical surface,so use very little paint on the stencil brush to avoid drips.

We began on the left side of the bedand taped a ginger and bird of paradisestencil in place. After stenciling thesetwo flowers, we flipped the ginger stencil over (after cleaning with warmwater and drying the stencil), placed the reversed stencil on the wall aboveour first ginger and gave height to thegarden.

Proceed in this manner, stenciling aflower, moving the stencil to your nextposition and stenciling the designagain.

Note: It is good to remember thatthe feeling of a garden mural is fresh and plants grow to different heights. Theplacement of floral stencils for such a mural can be much looser than say, aColonial border in a very traditional room.

Tropical Garden Mural on Purple Wall

Step 4When mural is complete, use small amount of wall paint to clean up any drips or uneven edges around stenciled shapes.

Tropical Garden Mural on Gold Wall

Walls are often daunting when beginning a mural. Begin in a corner or along the floor board and

build the mural upward. It just seems to be a good place to start.

Remember... Its only paint. Any section you are not happy

with can be simplypainted out with your wall paint.

Happy Stenciling!