Creating an Artistic Masterpiece: The Journey of an Art Deco Mural in London

01 Jun Creating an Artistic Masterpiece: The Journey of an Art Deco Mural in London

London is a large capital city with nearly 10 million inhabitants, nearly double that of all of Scotland put together. I was informed there were 300 known practising mural artist in the UK but I have no idea where that figure came from, I personally know of 20-30 of only 10 of which work to a high standard.
Most people use Google and do a search for ‘mural artist near me’ and come up with the nearest listed muralist, and depending on what the taste and the budget the potential client may find a perfect fit or may have to search more.
This is similar to the mural artist who may receive several enquiry’s a month but only 1 in 5 will have the taste and the budget to allow the artist to do something that is both financially and creatively rewarding. Several months ago I had one such inquiry. The assistant of a London agent sent me some reference images and photos of where the mural was to be painted.
From the style of the large painted wardrobes I knew care and expense had gone into the construction and there was potential to create something special.
The source material images were somewhat vague but that suited me as I wanted to create a mural inspired by the source and not copy it.

The next stage was to meet the client in their lovely home in a popular street in Islington, the house is decorated impeccably with first edition prints of very well known contemporary artists on the wall, all coordinated very professionally .
The meeting was successful in that there was an understanding of what could be achieved creatively, I took photos and measurements were supplied returning to the studio I set about doing a scaled drawing.
The scaled drawing of the murals london serves a double purpose, firstly for the client to see what you are proposing and also as a working format for scale when you actually come to do the work.
The scaled sketch was accepted with perhaps some minor changes and so the next stage is to create some samples, especially as this mural was complex as the materials used were a mixture of gold paint, gold leaf and an assortment of colourd glazes in wood tones which were combed over a previously applied base coat in different directions with a variation of shades.
When the actual work began on the mural we had to get the best base coat colour to compliment both the gold paint and the gold leaf but also to compliment the wood like combed glazes that were going to be applied over it. When this was done we had to mask up the areas where the cranes were going to fly as we would be working up to the edges of the flying birds.
What was uniquely elegant and special about this particular art deco mural was the effect of all the different finishes and how they reflected the light giving it a multi layered sophisticated effect and how the flying cranes juxtaposed giving an oriental flavour.