Painting imaginative murals

First, consider the basis or subject of your mural. Do you want to focus on a traditional design, featuring detailed imagery and line drawings, or a more modern, abstract design with bold colours and shapes? Landscapes, meanwhile, can give a classic, luxurious feel to a room, evoking the traditional designs of stately homes and palaces, while bright, graffiti-style designs can instantly modernise a room.

If you’re a particularly skilled artist, you might want to include figures or animals in your mural, whereas beginners might want to focus more on clean lines and bold colours.

You can look to your own interior design and the colours and themes already present in your room as your first source of inspiration. Is your home already full of sophisticated furnishings and clean lines? Then you probably don’t want to incorporate a graffiti mural – something understated like a sketch mural will work better. If you have a room full of modern, angular furniture with a deep colour scheme, a mural focused on shape and block colours will fit better than a delicate landscape scene.

Platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram can be useful in terms of discovering new ideas and what is on trend. You can also use these sites to create your own mood boards or collections of posts to help organise your ideas. This gives you a clear outline of what emotions and atmosphere you are trying to convey with your overall design. Finally, we’d always recommend sketching out your design to make sure it flows in the way you envision it.

The colour of your mural is entirely up to you! Let your imagination run and choose colours that fit with the atmosphere you’re trying to create – if you’re going for a relaxing, calming scene, perhaps for a bedroom or bathroom, consider muted blues, greens and purples. Pastels will work well for a child’s bedroom. Bright colours and strong shapes, meanwhile, can create an energising, creative atmosphere, so they’ll work well in a home gym or kitchen.

If you need help deciding on a colour scheme, you can use a colour wheel to identify colours that complement one another and avoid ones that clash. Again, platforms such as Pinterest will help you to visualise your chosen colours and patterns together through the use of mood boards.

You can always start by painting small sections of the wall with your chosen colours to see how they sit with the light in the room and alongside any furniture. A colour that looks vibrant in the shop might look darker in your home, particularly if you’re planning to use more than one layer.

Deciding what finish you want your mural to have is an essential part of the process. Latex and water-based paints are both good options, creating strong colour. However, if you’re looking for a glossy effect or you’re painting any areas that might be exposed to steam or water (such as a bathroom or kitchen wall), enamel paints will work best.

Be wary of using glossy enamel paints in rooms that get a lot of sun or have strong lighting, as this may cause a glare on your mural. Matte paints will absorb light, so they’re a good choice for areas where you need to hide any imperfections, such as uneven surfaces.

If you’re planning on painting a mural outside, you’ll want to choose a weatherproof paint such as latex, acrylic or spray paint.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your mural. To create a truly dramatic feature wall, consider adding different textures to your design. This could include sections of fabric placed either as a featured part of the pattern, or you could deliberately obscure sections of your mural. For example, thin layers of voile draped like curtains across the wall will create a dreamy atmosphere and frame your design. Or you could choose a tactile fabric, such as silk or velvet or raised paint to pick out detailing, perhaps a bird’s wing or a particular colour.

It is possible to buy paint which will lay raised, but this works best applied directly to fabric. To achieve a similar effect when painting directly on your wall, layer the paint on thickly and allow your brush strokes to be visible. You could even use a knife or a piece of card to apply multiple layers of paint. This technique, known as impasto, will add another dimension and engage the sense of touch as well as sight.

Leaving sections of your mural blank can create another point of interest. Having blank circles or squares blank breaks up a busy pattern and even gives you the opportunity to add another feature to the wall, such as a set of hooks for hanging coats or kitchen utensils. Just make sure the area blends in with your design, as you wouldn’t want your mural to look unfinished. This idea works better with irregular patterns rather than repeating patterns or imagery that includes people or places.