Part Three, Choosing and Creating Effective Hospital Artwork, Page 2

Color for Children's Murals

Use a mix of warm and cool hues taking care not to make the overall pallet too cool. Keep colors clean and clear but add plenty of white to them and small amounts of complementary hues to lighten and soften them. Limit the value range mostly by avoiding dark colors but also by not using much pure white. Avoid gloomy shadows-dark browns, grays and blacks--by using purples and blues instead. Many murals that look good at first sight eventually drive staff and frequent visitors a little batty. This is because they have colors that are too dark or overly vivid, contrasts that are too extreme, or because they put hues that fight each other side by side. It usually takes a fair amount of planning to avoid these mistakes.

Composition of Children's Murals

Use natural scenes such as landscapes, ocean views or underwater scenes. Work especially hard at placing trees into the composition. If it's an underwater scene, put in plenty of green plant life. Create horizontal lines and planes with horizon lines, beach surf lines, streams and rows of hills. These lines can also help unify compositions that stretch down long hallways. If the room or corridor that's being painted is small or narrow, use especially light, muted colors and take full advantage of a landscape theme by putting mountains or islands far off in the distance. Artists who have gotten away with less than perfect three-point perspective in their smaller canvas works may find out the hard way that in large scale works the perspective needs to be dead on. Also place the mural's horizon line between 4'-10" and 5'-4" above the ground.

Integration of Murals with What's Already There

Whenever a mural runs into a permanent wall fixture, try to work the fixture into the composition. So x-ray light boxes are held aloft by polar bears, air conditioning vents turn into truck grills, exposed pipes become flagpoles and support columns grow into tree trunks.

I am frequently commissioned to design donor recognition plaques, directional signs and room identification signs that work as integral parts of the scenes I'm painting. Bulletin boards are another item I design and build to blend into my artwork. Many artists don't have the tools or training to do these sorts of things but they can always work with other professionals that do.