Introducing Brighton Murals and its new logo!

Prior to painting the Dinosaur mural for my friend's home child care program, I would never in ten million years have thought that I was qualified to go around painting murals for people since I had very little experience and virtually no formal instruction.  However, having completed my first ever, full wall mural, and being happy with the results, my confidence took a boost.  It continued to go up  when several other people in the early childhood community learned about the dinosaur project, saw it, and liked.  Before I knew it, people were asking me what I charged and if I could paint for them.  I was stunned.  Charge?  That had never occurred to me before.  How much does stuff like that go for? 

The whole experience was very complimentary and put the idea in my head of perusing some additional projects.  I hadn't actually planned on painting murals as business until a professional contact that I knew from a previous job, and who was the director of a commercial child care center, asked if she could hire me to spruce up an ugly, plain wall at her center.  A paying gig?  Who could turn that down?  The center was affiliated with the local university and they would be hiring me as a contractor, but required that I be a legitimate, licensed business with my own liability coverage etc.  I don't remember now what all the hoops were I needed to go through to make it happen, but I decided to go for it and become an official business.  Before I could file as a business though, I needed a business name.

My first idea was Murals by Lisa, but it was already taken, not as a local business name, but by someone who owned the url at muralsbylisa.com.  I'm sad to say that that site doesn't work anymore because I quickly became her biggest fan.  The "murals by Lisa" were really good and I received a lot of inspiration and confidence from her paintings.  Although I really liked her I didn't want to be mistaken for her online and I wanted to have my own url that was uniquely mine (a friend of mine was going to create a website for me).  After a bunch of brainstorming and Google searching to find something that I felt wouldn't be confused with anyone else, I finally decided to branch out to my middle name, Brighton, and became "Brighton Murals."

I filed my business papers and started jumping hoops.

Next, I needed a logo.  This was a my first attempt at digital design.  I had learned some basics of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator from a job I had for 11 months at a print company (I was a project manager, not a designer), so my skills were novice, but good enough, and this is what I came up with:

My new business logo, (That paint brush was my first attempt at 100% completely digital drawing).

I'm proud to say, it's almost 10 years later, and I still like it.

Armed with my new logo, my new confidence, my branded licensed business including a website, business cards and a bunch of other official looking documents and agreements, I was ready to get painting!  My problem was I didn't exactly have anything to paint yet.

It would still be a few months before I was approved as a contractor at the child care center and all of the consultations were done and design proposals approved. So in the meantime, I decided to work on improving my skills by drawing everyday, creating a portfolio of ideas, and convincing a friend of mine to let me get some mural practice by painting her kitchen, which you can see pictures of here.

I did eventually complete the mural at the child care center, which you can see here, and with that, Brighton Murals was born.

Fast forward to spring of 2013 as I'm creating this blog and strolling down memory lane back entering all of my history.  I've goggled "Brighton Murals" to see how my business name withstood the test of time.  Not bad!  There is another Brighton Murals out there, but it's in the UK.  There are also a few USA companies that have "Brighton" in the business name because it's the name of the city they are located, but their complete business name is different, so I don't seem to be competing with anyone locally for the name.  I am a little sad that I don't still own the url though.

UPDATE 12/31/13:
I was playing around online and guess what?  Muralsbylisa.com is working at least for today!  Check it out and if it isn't working when you do, try back later.

Dinosaur Play Room

A friend of mine ran a child care program out of her home and asked if I would paint a dinosaur themed mural in her play room. 

Here is the end result

The plan was to have the kids who attended the child care program to put their green hand prints on the tree for leaves. That is why there are lots of branches and not many leaves.



The body of the purple dinosaur wrapped all the way around the room and behind the door and closets.  I Photoshoped the four walls flat to create a better sense of the finished mural in the picture below.



Christmas Backdrop

I was asked by co-coworker if I would paint a back drop to hang behind Santa's chair at a Christmas party she was arranging for her clients.  She wanted something simple that could be painted on large butcher paper and thrown away after the event.  This was the end result.

 

The idea was that Santa had walked across the roof (see the footprints) and came down the chimney to bring presents for the kids at the party.

Heart Art

I was invited by a non-profit group that I used to work for to participate in a fundraising event called "Heart Art."  It was an art sale that included several local artists creating art on site and answering questions.  Each artist donated art for auction and all of the proceeds benefited children.  I was one of the artists and was dying Ukranian Eggs called Pysanka (plural pysanky) as guests shopped.  These are the pieces I made that were sold.

"The brown colors on these eggs represent the earth and the color of mountains.  The rhythmical repeat patterns are adapted from the Trypilliam artifacts found in Ukraine.  The swirling designs are believed to represent "mother earth" and the female, from whom new life comes."

"The traditional 40 triangle Ukrainian Egg design has many meanings.  In Christian times the forty triangles represented the forty days of Lent and the forty days of Christ's fasting.  The three corners of each triangle are symbolic of the three members of the Godhead.  This design also represents the many facets of life including family matters, weddings and the birth of children."

"Ukrainian Eggs use a variety of bold colors with meaning.  The flowers on these eggs are red, which connotes nobility, bravery, enthusiasm, hope and passion; orange, which symbolizes everlasting warmth; yellow means a successful harvest and wisdom; and white, which stands for purity.  Many Ukrainian Egg designs use flowers freely to represent beauty, life and children."

The Daisy Room

I became affiliated with an organization called The Sharing Place when the Executive Director asked me to paint a mural of Daisies all around the boarder of their kitchen.  They were naming the room "The Daisy Room" in honor of a significant donor whose name was Daisy.

The Sharing Place is a grief support program for children who have suffered the loss of a family member.  It is such an amazing place and anyone living in the Salt Lake area should check out their website at www.thesharingplace.org/ to learn more about them.

This was my first "real" project.  I had a specific task, in a public place, on a tight timeline and there was no option to change my mind once I got started.  I had committed to complete the project and was unwilling to disappoint.  The building was in use during the day and some evenings for support groups and I was limited to only working on the mural outside of business hours.  To make matters worse I was working full time and going to school full time so long story short there was a lot of time spent standing on ladders in the middle of the night to complete this project.

I was probably a little (okay, maybe a lot) in over my head, especially since I recall there was something like 75 feet 6" tall of wall space that I needed to paint.  Luckily, I had some amazing friends who were willing to help me and several people put in some incredibly long hours and late nights to pull it off.

I had printed several copies of the design in a repeat pattern to the correct size.  The process included using transfer paper to trace the design on the wall (done with the help of a friend) and then filling in the large spaces with the main colors (done with the help of many friends) and then going over it to fill in the detail which I did completely myself.  We managed to complete this by the deadline and it was ready for everyone to see at the open house celebration.  Everyone seemed to really like it and I became so connected with the organization after the experience that I ended up volunteering there for two and a half years.

Here is the final result:

In addition to the mural I painted these four tiles that hang on the wall of The Daisy Room.

I did the daisies on the corners of this one, but someone else did the lettering.

Miscellaneous projects from College

During the same garage clean out where I found I bunch of old art projects that I had saved from high school, I found these little treasures that I had saved from college.

"Love" 12"x14" ink calligraphy and acrylic on paper

This was from a calligraphy class I took at the Salt Lake Community College.  I made the hearts from a stamp that I carved out of an old eraser.

 

These next two weren't connected to any kind of class I took in school.  Just stuff I did around that same time frame.  Even in the middle of painting these, I never thought they were "art" per say.  I was just playing around for fun.

 

"Nude Beach" 5"x7" acrylic on canvas

"Kiss" 5"x7" acrylic on canvas

Jorge

My very first post in this blog of my first mural has a photograph of a guy whose face is covered and you can only vaguely see the mural behind him.  This is him:

"Jorge" 16"x20" charcoal on paper

His name is Jorge.  He was my high school boyfriend and died shortly after my graduation from complications of lupus.  I made this charcoal drawing of him that summer.  It is now the spring of 2013 and I came across this picture in a file that I've had in my garage that I've kept for almost 20 years.  I didn't know how to preserve the charcoal at the time and it wasn't framed or anything as it sat in storage, so even though it has smeared in some places, especially around the mouth, I think it has held up pretty well overall.  This is possibly the first portrait I ever drew.

I think it is interesting that after my mom died in 2012 (sorry that the chronology of this blog is all over the place) the first thing I did to express my grief was paint a portrait of her as well.  Apparently there is something very healing in that for me and I didn't make the connection until just now.  I'm very drawn to art in times of intense emotion in my life.

Jorge is buried in Puerto Rico in a cemetery where the cement vaults are above ground. Many of them are painted bright colors, but the last time I was there his wasn't decorated at all.  I have had a fantasy for many years to travel back and paint a mural of a beautiful, floral casket spray on his vault.  I'm still in touch with his family and one of these days I'll talk to them about it and see if it's something they would let me do.  I'd love to be able to leave a lasting token of respect and remembrance for a dear friend gone too soon.

For more information about lupus or make a donation to fight for the cure visit http://www.lupus.org/.