My first mural

Some years ago, we saw a wonderful underwater themed tile mural at a hotel in Laguna Beach, California. We decided we would like something similarly underwater-related in our garden.

A few years later, a neighbor’s new fence was going to impact our access to the far side of our garage which needed painting. Remembering our underwater idea, we picked a very, very deep blue paint. The garage would be “underwater.”

Our garage is detached at the back of our lot. The garage door isn’t obstructed by plants, furniture, or the deck….it seemed a perfect spot for an underwater mural.

We had saved underwater images for years, not knowing what we would do with them. We also looked online for underwater images. And coincidentally, our friend Rita sent us beautiful digital photographs from her visit to San Diego’s Birch Aquarium.

We decided to pick the best and assemble a photo montage of fish, coral and kelp. We selected images for their intense colors, and for colors we will use on other areas as we continue to paint our house. Using Photoshop, I trimmed , cut-and-pasted, reversed, enlarged, reduced, stretched and combined them together. Our garage door is 7′ high and 16′ wide, so I worked with an image 7″ high and 16″ wide. The final result may not be scientifically accurate, but it is very colorful.

Next article: Converting from digital to paint

First image: tile mural in Laguna

Second: garage wall “underwater blue” paint

Third-Fifth: Rita’s fish photos

Sixth: final fish/coral/kelp underwater montage