Painting the Mural

• 1
  Look for individual shapes within your design.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Locate photo references from books or the Internet. Perhaps you can take a photo of your own piano. Print out or bookmark these images, making sure you have an overall view of an entire piano, as well as a close-up image of the keys. This will help you tremendously throughout the process.
  
  
• 2
  Good preparation is key to any painting project.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Prepare your work area by covering the floor and any nearby furniture with drop cloths. Tape the edges of your wall to protect them from excess paint marks. Give the wall a quick scrubbing, using soap and water. This will remove any dirt and debris so that your paint will easily spread and stick.
  
  
• 3). Paint your base coat, or background, using white latex paint. This can be purchased at your local hardware store in a container appropriately sized for your particular wall. Use a large, flat angled brush for full coverage. Let the wall dry completely.
  
  
• 4). Sketch some ideas out on paper, using the photo references to help you with shading, perspective and inspiration. Since the mural will determine the tone of the room, decide whether you'd like the room to have a serious, formal feel, or a playful one. You don't necessarily need to interpret every detail of the piano body. You can create a rolling, curvilinear, diagonal row of keys, for example. The keys could grow larger, even gigantic, at the bottom, partially "disappearing" into the floor, and the keys near the opposite end at the top could fade into miniatures. Use your imagination, and think on a large scale.
  
  
• 5). Draw the outline of your piano design directly onto the white surface, using a common pencil. Press gently and use your eraser when necessary. You will essentially be coloring inside the lines, so make sure you are happy with the design before continuing. The keys of a piano will be repetitive shapes, but the shapes can vary in size and even be asymmetrical and off-kilter. It's often best to exaggerate the size and shapes in an abstract way within a mural.
  
  
• 6). Visualize the shapes you have created within your penciled sketch, and decide what colors will go where. A piano and its keys don't have to be all black and white, although the keys can create a rather hypnotic zigzag effect. Latex and acrylic paints can be used interchangeably, so feel free to blend the colored acrylics with the white latex. This will really help to stretch your paint, and create a wide spectrum of shades within your composition.
  
  
• 7). Paint inside the largest shapes using a medium flat brush. The best plan is to paint all the similarly colored shapes before moving on to the next color. Use your small round brush to get inside any difficult nooks and crannies. Move on to the smaller shapes, carefully moving your brush at an angle toward the edges. While mostly a black and white repetitive pattern, the piano mural can certainly have interesting colors added to evoke a variety of emotions. Perhaps the keys might fade into purple shadows in the distance, while in the foreground they are bathed in a sunshine yellow.
  
  
• 8). Stand back and look at your mural. Complete your work of art by adding any embellishments that hearken to your passion for piano music. Emphasize the keys by adding thick edges to separate them and really let them sing.