Category: Murals

Looking for wall decals, wall decor, or just some wall art for your home?

Get a sports mural of the Chicago Cubs in your home! Or just a mural of your favorite sports teams. D’franco Painting & Wallpaper can recreate a locker room or stadium of your favorite sport team in your home!

Chicago Cubs wall mural done on one wall.

How will you celebrate the winning season of the Chicago Cubs? You could see them on TV, buy a jersey, souvenir hats or some other trinket. How about doing something really special, and having a custom Chicago Cubs wall mural painted in your home?!

This Chicago Cubs wall mural was painted a few years ago for a bedroom wall. We actually carved bricks on the wall with carving plaster, painted them, made a 368′ sign, then made a Wrigley Marquee sign. We did our best to cut out the marquee to scale, painted letters, and of course have the cubs winning. There’s nothing like having a sports mural of your favorite team in your home!

This next mural, as you will, see was a little more than a few bricks. With a few pictures as ideas, listening to the young man we were painting for, as well as the parents, we went to work. Keep reading to see it come from plain white walls to a 22′ wall mural!

We started with images from the web. Brick walls, people, time of day, full sun, shade, time of year, who the cubs were playing against on a given day and took bits and pieces of each one to develop some background images. We blurred the background fans as much as we could, starting in the front rows we made them progressively out-of-focus to keep the center of attention as the Cubs Player at bat.

Here is the side view on how it was decided to take the Chicago Blackhawks side of the mural to go into two walls, and take advantage of more “real estate.” Again, we spent some time looking for reference material from images on the web, to the family’s collection of photos. We searched for finding the right angles, looked at the different point of views, and at various focal points. Then, of course, getting the right pose and best type of image of the player in action.

Fans are in the stands in this wall mural!

We started filling in more of the fans in the stands. The blank seats need to be filled in, always checking to make sure the mural was fading to the distance, keeping the focus and sharpest image of the players chosen.

Another view of the wall mural with a Chicago Blackhawks player.

Sports Mural of this family’s favorite sports teams: Chicago Cubs and Blackhawks

As we progressed with the mural, the ceilings had to be painted, then the ceiling had a few thousand LED lights to simulate stars and constellations. Crown molding was installed though out the room to set apart the ceiling wall/mural lines, then we had it painted bright aluminum. The headboard was delivered white for us to paint and letter up. Then, the footboard is given to us to paint in Wrigley Green and Metallic Aluminum. We finished off the mural with more shading, clear coats with bedding put into place.

Now that you can see a winning cubs season, lets get a winning Chicago Cubs wall mural in your home! Sports murals are unique and have greater details than wall decals and wall décor.

Call us for pricing, sports mural ideas, schedule and GO CUBS GO!!! (847) 349-4112

Hand painted murals?

They have taken a back seat to the wallpaper peel and stick images I did the last few years. This week, however, we are able to show the mural project we completed for a client in Elgin, IL. Wallpaper has its place, but nothing beats a hand-painted mural on the wall. We were given one photo and license to paint away. So we did.

1st day of a mural, airbrushing clouds using a projector, we lay out the buildings from the picture we were given by our client blocking in color and scenery of mural the end of the day, with coloring in the mural background colors, shading in shadows, coloring bricks, adding foreground trees third day of mural painting and we are getting more detailed foreground adding the vineyards in the front of the image adding shadows and deeper colors for depth of greenery.

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More shadows and now adding the haze seen from the images provided

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Framing out the mural to repaint the wall

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The wall color repainted to frame out the mural

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Removal of tape, now we start adding stonework

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Brick stones are measured and we mask the edges of the mural

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Using the airbrush, we start adding shadows and highlights of stonework

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Tape is all removed, all is shaded, mural with a stone frame on the wall

So from start to finish, we have taken several images as we progressed from idea to finished product. The client really made this project as perfect as I have ever had a mural go. They had not just an idea but they had several images for us to really get the look, style, and overall feel of the result they were looking for.  After the mural was painted, we put a clear coat of modern masters on it to protect it. Then we glazed the entire room to really pull in to color tones and get that old world look.

If you have time, you can go over to our YouTube channel, D’franco Painting & Wallpaper and you can see a few videos we posted about doing this project as well.

What kind of mural are you looking for? Chicago Cubs mural? Maybe a Blackhawks Mural? Your kids playing their favorite sport? Check out the murals we already did for other clients!

Give us a call and we will see how we may be able to serve you best.

God Bless,

David

How Do You Start A Wall Mural?

Starting a wall mural takes some set-up preparation.

Enjoy this sneak peek of D’franco Painting & Wallpaper starting a wall mural, and check back for the next video with the final results!

How Much Does it Cost for a Custom Mural?

We have all seen them. We are all amazed by them. Hand-painted custom murals painted on walls, ceilings, buildings, trucks, cars, and trailers. Even wall decals and wall art, are amazing. A custom mural is a great work of art, but how much does it cost?

There are several Factors that affect the cost of a custom mural.

• Type of mural
• How long will it take
• Type of materials needed to paint
• Location and needed prep or final top coats (exterior brick, pool rooms, basements)
• Labor cost
• Special installation cost (making it removable)
• Special needs (scaffolding)
• where do you live? We service the greater Chicagoland area, which makes for some special problems with parking, unloading materials while working in the City of Chicago or getting in a home with equipment due to stairs, entrances or walkways

What type of custom painted mural are you looking for?

It may sound easy enough that you want a mural painted but there are different styles.

Fresco painting mural

• There are murals for children’s rooms that are usually a coloring book type of painting
• One of my favorites is fresco style such as seen at the Sistine Chapel in Italy
• Then the other that we do is Airbrush realistic type murals

How long will a mural take to paint?

This question depends on what you want and where you want it.

Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Cubs mural

• Is it outside? If so weather and the surface to be painted will take longer to get ready. Painting on concrete or brick will take extra time for power washing, primers, and weather.
• An 8ft wall is pretty straightforward, but a two-story stairwell is not so easy. Special scaffolding takes extra time to set up, work on, moving up and down the ladders and moving materials.
• How detailed is the mural? The more 3D or depth, the longer it takes.

What materials are needed?

• Again, special primers are needed to paint a custom wall mural
• If we are using paint brushes there is one type of paint, if airbrush a different paint
• Needed clear coats to protect the mural from UV sun damage, water resistance, or touching
• Any need for projectors, compressors, large-scale enlargements?

Labor Cost

• On average the cost of murals is about $10.00 to $15.00 per square foot to paint. How much detail affects cost.
• Sometimes the work before we paint takes just as long to do as it does to paint the mural itself. Good research on the image you want, proper scaling, custom artwork or graphic design to get an image to scale takes time.

Special Installation costs

• Is it going to be painted on drywall or do you want to be able to move it or relocate it?
• Some murals are actually painted on canvas then installed as a wallpaper to make sure it can be taken down if you move, relocate it, or just not wanting it to just be painted over. If you have questions about wallpaper murals, we can answer them!
• Outside installation can be done on panels and mounted to a wall.

Special Equipment

• Will the artist need an air compressor?
• Will there be a need for scaffolding?
• Does the surface need special primers, sprayers, ladders, air scrubbers, no voc materials?

What you need to do – YOUR HOMEWORK!

• You will need to decide what you want to be painted. Spend some time on the internet to decide what type of you want, what type of image, how large or small, and how much is you are willing to spend (keep in mind a minimum mural will be at least $500.00)
• When are you looking to have the work done by?
• Will the artist be able to do the work when someone is there (working on a stairwell makes it hard for walking under, through or around scaffold and ladders)
• Know what your expectations are and be able to freely discuss them with your muralist.

Do you have any other questions about mural painting that was not answered here? You can always call us and ask. Feel free to email david@dfrancofiishes.com or call at 847-553-1726 and we will be happy to help you out.

This is our latest Fresco which was inspired by the paintings at the Sistine Chapel. This painted plaster painting will still need a frame and a home, but still a great feeling to complete.

Our next painting is something that I have dreamed about several times, so I cannot ignore it. I hope to take a cue from the great Norman Rockwell.

I had the opportunity to meet a Master of Trompe l’oeil, William Cochran. Thanks to the Chicago Institute of Fine Finishes, a small group came to meet, listen, and learn some new painting techniques, correct some bad habits, learn new ones, see color and light differently, and appreciate the right paint brushes for the right job. William has some amazing artwork, can teach, and loves his work. From his community bridge project to small murals, now painting with glass, William is a true inspiration for following a dream and bringing a vision to life. I hope we meet again.

Now, we just need to find some new mural jobs to use these new skills. Does anyone have any ideas?

We just got a call from a customer to help with their painting and Faux finishing. When we arrived at their home we found a kitchen that had cost more that both of my cars together. It was beyond stunning. The walls however needed help. Colors were off, there was standard drywall, stucco, and some type of broken/rough plaster scattered throughout the room. In trying to save money, we painted everything one color and are glazing it with a 2 tone color wash to pick up the colors from the wood cabinets and the granite counter. What was thrown together is now actually appearing to have been planned!With the cabinets a wormy chestnut the rough plaster and stucco actually look very well together-I never would have though of that.

We next get to fix some foundation cracks, paint bedroom closet doors, paint a family room, paint 2 kids bedrooms, then figure out what type of murals we will paint in the rooms for the kids. Fun job, great people to work with.

One of the top questions we get from customers when they are looking for a mural is “How much does a mural cost”? I wish that was an easy question to answer, but it is not.  Think of a mural as buying a car, you cannot call a car dealer and ask them how much is an SUV? Think of the details that you want in your car: size, color, budget, leather/cloth, stereo, GPS, how many seats, etc.

Questions to ask yourself as you prepare

Now put that into a mural. How big is your wall? What type of theme do you want? Do you only want a wall or do you want to incorporate a ceiling and joining walls? How long do you want this mural to be in your home? Are you looking for a cartoonish painting, a realist painting, abstract?

These questions determine the pricing.  Have you looked online at other murals? There are thousands of images online that you can use to inspire your own personalized mural.  From a baby nursery, music themes, race fans, movie themed, inspired from a photo, a favorite vacation spot, or maybe something small like a painting of your pet.

We can help you find what you are looking for. We work with digital murals, wallpaper murals, and painted murals.

Just like we tell our young men in Boy Scouts, “be prepared!”