The Business of Murals: Improving Your Skills

There is always room for improvement. Whether you are an experienced muralist or new to the business, or are not sure you can even paint, here are some ways you can improve your mural skills. To create a mural, you need to be able to transfer the mural to the wall, paint it in a semi realistic to realistic manner and work quickly and efficiently.

Read instructional books and materials:

There are many magazines, books, and other material available for an artist to improve their mural skills. An artist magazine is teaches a new technique with each new issue. Amazon.com has an endless resource of written tutorial that will help you build your skills. When reading these tutorials, do not be passive about it, get out your materials and try the new techniques.

View other artists work:

Do not work within a bubble. Expose yourself to the work of other artists. Visit the websites of other artists and network with them in person. Do not be to shy to ask artist questions, many are more than happy to share their tricks and tips. No two artists will ever do the same thing exactly the same anyway. You will see techniques and details that you may have never considered before. Go home, and do some practice paintings trying out the different techniques and ideas. Integrating a few new ideas will bring your work to a higher level.

Take classes and workshops:

There are artist’s courses and workshops in every city, big or small, from beginners to expert. Hobby stores and hardware stores are a great place for a beginning muralist to start. Weekend workshops are ideal for artists looking to freshen their skills or improve upon them. More in-depth courses are available at local colleges, universities, or art schools. While you are at it, you can get an art degree or additional degrees while you are at it.

Finding learning resources:

To find learning opportunities to improve your skills, you need to know what kind of skills you are trying to develop. If want to get past using a projector to transfer your murals onto the wall, take a sketch class. You will learn how to better discern proportion, depth and scale. If you want to make your murals more realistic, take an advanced painting class. Since most muralists’ work with acrylics, I would avoid and oil painting course as the program will include information you may not be interested in. To learn how to paint faster, spend time in artist workshops as lots of practice and advice from other artists will help you paint more quickly and confidently.