Hey all! 

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring even though it seems to have gone missing for the time being! I am so done with this cold weather! 

I wanted to share a mural I created for my son’s nursery. It took a bit to get it together but Maddox seems to be totally into it! Phew! One of the easiest clients I’ve had so far! :D

My agent created a blog post about it, too. So if you want more details about my process check it out here! Below is a summary and photos. Here goes…

I’ve always had a deep fascination with the ocean. It has always been magical and relaxing to my husband, Dom, and I. We wanted Maddox’s room to have that same feeling. I knew I wanted to do an ocean theme for Maddox’s nursery so I set out brainstorming ideas when I was pregnant. At first I thought of doing a painted mural but that seemed so permanent. I wanted something I could remove easily just incase Maddox had different ideas of what he wanted in his room. I’ve noticed so many awesome vinyl decals for sale at retail shops and I thought that would be the perfect solution to my commitment phobia!

At first I started looking up all sorts of sea life in books and online. I created a reference folder and started sketching. I got totally carried away and started inventing my own animals. See Merferret! :D After the sketching I started to vectorize all of the creatures since I knew those were the type of files I would need to submit to the sticker company. Then I moved onto color and that was a tough one! Our guest room, soon-to-be nursery, was blue and I thought going monochromatic might help us achieve that calming feeling we wanted for Maddox’s room. I changed my mind several times and decided I had to add a pop of color. I went for a snack in the fridge later that day, like I often did when I was pregnant, and saw cantaloupe! I knew that creamy orange would give me the pop of color I was looking for! All my pregnancy eating helped my work and my baby - all the reason to eat some more! Now came the measuring! I took measurements of the wall in Maddox’s nursery and created a mockup in Illustrator to help me figure out how I wanted to layout all the creatures. It was fun to finally see all the elements work with one another but something was missing… Hand-lettering! I made a hand-lettered quote and put that front and center. That helped everything come together!

Thanks so much for your time and please be sure to connect with me on linkedin, instagram, dribbble and/or twitter for my current projects. I love blogging but I am more active on those channels. Also, please feel free to get in touch if you have a question or to inquire about a collaboration! I’d love to hear from you!

Angela