How to Add Detail to a Wall Mural

When painting a mural, first decide how much detail it needs. Detail level is determined by mural location. Ceiling murals, or murals providing a backdrop to a room, rarely need elaborate details, whereas wall murals that are designed in areas that viewers can get close to need minute details. The closer people are to your mural, the more detail they want to see.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Create areas of high contrast. Paint in shadows to give a true three dimensional look to your pages. Add multiple colors to your leaves that show off details such as veins in the leaves as well as their dark undersides.

2. Paint the shadow and lowlight areas of the detail areas first, then add highlights to the edges that will correspond do you perceived light source. Hightlights and shadows must be pained using a very fine brush.

3. Recreate cracks and splits in any surface made to look like stone or tile. The key to creating lifelike three-dimensional murals is to add the ages lines and textures that you would normally see in the natural materials.

4. Add character to your people. Don't paint all faces on a mural the same. The details of the human face are based in the faces imperfections. Add wrinkles and twinkles to the faces so that they each have individuality.

Tips & Warnings

• When painting a mural, one of the hardest things to do is keep in mind a constant source of light. The sun can't ever be in two locations at once, and neither can your mural's imagined light source either.
• Murals that don't aim to be realistic, such as characters for a child's nursery, may not require a lot of detail. The topic of the mural may have as much to do with how much detail you put in your mural, as its location.