28 May Trompe l’oeil murals inspired by historical references
I recently had a meeting in Mayfair London to discuss two potential murals to go into the reception area of an exclusive Beauticians surgery. The interior designers were based in Sydney Australia as was the surgeon and he was opening a new surgery in London.
The designer had found me by doing a search on google for ‘Trompe l’oeil mural artists London’ and was impressed by some of my grisaille trompe l’oeil murals, especially those in warm stone colours. The designer was taking inspiration from art inspired by classic Hellenistic stone friezes, also the friezes based around Helen of Troy and the Troy war.
The two areas that were earmarked for the murals were 89cm x 4 and 5 metres, those are long space to fill with specific subjects, there are several approaches to this sort of commission, the lazy way which is to find some reference images and reproduce the same image at different angles and treatments over the whole space. The only way I can get satisfaction from this type of mural project is by researching the subject matter properly and choosing the relevant reference images and making up a story from the subject matter.
This involved choosing a specific subject which was Achilles and the Trojan war as there were enough visual references and then making a scaled sketch of the frieze with added character additions like including a border and all suitably antiqued to give authentic character. A scaled drawing for an original mural 5 metres long of a trompe l’oeil grisaille frieze without repetition is a lot of work but it helps save time when it comes to the next stage.
When the drawing is complete and the client has passed the content I use a low throw projector and project the scaled drawing onto the wall (or canvas) and draw it directly onto the wall, this way the mural painter is guaranteed accuracy and the whole process is speeded up.
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