Wall Murals

From Digital Camera to Full Wall Mural is Easy

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:58:44 +0000

You just shot an amazing picture. Out of the thousands you’ve taken, this one is special. And the most you’ve been able to do display this or any of your photos is print them on a single page on your black and white or laser printer. What if you could enlarge your photo then print it in panels simultaneously to make a wall mural covering your entire wall?

Most people think a professional print shop with a very large scale printer or plotter is required to even create poster-size enlargements. However there is inexpensive software called YottaPrint that can create panels of photos the way billboards are made. You can even use this software to create billboards with the right equipment.

This software allows you to print any picture that is on your computer using any printer; even the smallest, least expensive color printer can be used to create the largest wall mural. See more at www.yottaprint.com.

Train Mural Demonstrates New Use for Photo Enlargement

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:49:05 +0000

Photography’s ever-expanding uses due to the advent of digital photography with computer photo editing increased once again last week as Vista, California unveiled a train with a mural on the body.

Because digital photography is well suited to photo enlargement and output technologies are growing, new ways of visualizing images are being developed. Photographs can now be applied as wall murals to bathroom or kitchen tiles using dye sublimation, cars and trucks using vehicle wrap techniques, and now trains and buses. What’s next, jumbo airplanes and entire buildings?

Murals Outside the Box

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:31:43 +0000

We’ve recently noticed two new directions that large image or mural communications have gone recently, both very focused on “realism.” One form is writing about “nothing” or the perceived need to give people a “break” in billboard communications and the other is taking the ability to create realistic art to the extreme of actually tricking the eye by painting what might be perceived not as art but as disaster. The former type of minimalist communication is intended to turn billboard works around, to communicate by not communicating. It reflects the very real “message overload” world we living — in the United States and other capitalist countries how people in those cultures have subconsciously trained their minds to not look at obvious attempts to advertise and the recognition that breaking through this new subconscious pre-occupation is possible simply by reversing what is expected to a minimalist result.

The second ultra-realistic form of mural communication has been most shockingly and recently portrayed by an artist named John Pugh and his trompe l’oeil or “trick of the eye” style of painting. My mother was an art teacher for 32 years in a small town in the State of Oregon in the United States. Growing up I was exposed to all forms of painting and artwork from oils to watercolors to ink and from impressionism to realism. By far I always was drawn to the more realistic art works because the more real they appeared, the greater ability they had to “trick” your eyes into believing something was there that was not. I always perceived that realism is much more difficult to create for the artist — impressionism has no measure by which to judge its quality except the image held in the mind of the artist. Realism has the very definitive measure of the real subject being painted with which to measure quality.

John Pugh and muralists like him have taken realism to an entirely new level. This artistic form is even more exciting to me than realism paintings in that it strives to be so far away from impressionism as to both make the mind accept the setting of the art as real and some shocking part of the artwork then becomes as close as possible to believable based on the realism of the entire piece. The fact that these pieces of ultra-realistic art are done on such a grand scale to in huge murals is even more impressive. And, Mr. Pugh has evidence of just how realistic his work is. As reported in the UK’s Daily Mail, John Pugh with the help of 11 other artists created a mural of a giant wave in Honolulu, Hawaii, “so realistic that just as it was near completion, it attracted the attention of the fire brigade … [who] jumped out to rescue the children [drawn so realistically] in the mural. They got about 15 feet away and then doubled over laughing when they realized what it was.” How perfect is that? This is the optimum path mural art should be taking in my mind — if the public art is so real as to fool public service professionals then how could the viewing public around such works of art possibly object? Impressionistic art – or art that seems like a “fuzzy dream” with unreal looking characters and content is open to all the interpretation both good and bad of any creative work, but realism pulls interpretation out of the equation. Murals that look real can hardly be criticized based on the artistic likes and dislikes of the viewer pertaining to the form of the art; to criticize an ultra-realistic painting or mural based on its form (realism) alone is to criticize reality itself. Of course, critical judgment can certainly be rendered on the subject matter or content of the piece.

That’s where ultra-realistic “trick of the eye” murals go one step further to dodge viewer interpretation. The real beauty of this type of mural construction is that the viewer must first resolve what is and is not real before criticism can be rendered. This may have the ultimate effect of enhancing adoption into communities along with the increased attractiveness of the locations where these works are constructed. We applaud this type of mural creation and sincerely hope this form of public art increases in popularity in the future.

Murals Always Amidst Political Unrest

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:46:16 +0000

No where in possibly the world do murals make more of a statement than the Berlin wall. One side of the Berlin Wall is an almost mile long row of 106 murals painted by 118 artists back in 1990. The images were created to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many images are relevant to that event and The Wall’s impact in Europe for decades prior.

These murals were decayed with many are barely recognizable.

This week artists started repainting the decaying faded Berlin Wall murals and apparently they’re almost finished. The support of the German government is to be commended, having spent over EU3M to fund the renovation. Having considered demolition, the German government recognized the legacy of not only the Wall, but of the famous murals and their place in art and culture. Throughout history, murals have symbolized and at times caused political unrest, both pre-conflict and to celebrate conflict resolution between fighting cultures. The Berlin Wall murals now restored carries on this tradition.

Mural Program Shows How to Do-It-Yourself

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:31:31 +0000

Living with a Mural

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:26:07 +0000

Having a mural is really like living with a mural — you don’t ‘hang’ a mural as you do a painting or a poster — a wall mural is a living thing that takes over its immediate environment making surrounding objects fade into the visual background. It warms the room, removing your mind and your subconscious into the image, transporting you to another place. Mural size is all important — can you imagine the lack of effect a muralist would have if their creations were the size of average paintings? Large images send stronger, louder messages than images the size of photos, posters or paintings.

Increasingly technology is enhancing what can be done with digital photos. Wallpaper and various other home decorating stores are growing their product lines of mural-type wallpapers, or photo mural products. Photo murals were rare just a few short years ago but are increasing in popularity and affordability. High tech mural products create amazing interiors that bring the outdoors inside or magnify images for intense artistic effect. Adding size to images goes beyond changing the ambience of a room; large images alter the mood of occupants entirely.

Yet photo mural products are expensive and not personal. Often costing hundreds per wall, photo mural choices are limited to stock photos that often have little personal meaning to the person that will be living with the mural.

There is a better way. As written in the blog entry “How to Paint a Mural,” the technology of today’s high megapixel digital cameras combined with the latest photo enlargement software can provide a way to construct wall murals just as billboards on the sides of highways are made – in individual image panels. This mural program allows the construction of virtually unlimited murals both in size and quantity, all from home computing equipment. Kneson Software’s mural program called YottaPrint prints personal or any digital photo for wall mural construction using any printer or plotter. See “How to Paint a Mural” for more information.

Mural Program

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:58:37 +0000

With the coming of age of digital cameras in the last decade or so, we noticed that technology and software was opening up what is possible and affordable for photographers and interior-minded people that weren’t necessarily artists. Kneson Software (www.kneson.com), a company that already had created a sophisticated photo enlargement program called Imagener realized that it was only natural to use the engine inside Imagener and make a mural program able to take enlarged images and print them in panels much the same way billboard advertisements are produced. Kneson Software made YottaPrint because for the first time in history the average computer user already had high resolution personal photos in digital form on their computers, and their Imagener photo enlargement technology had just been release a few years earlier. It was also evident in the mural world that the choices for making wall murals should include personal photos, and no other mural program had been developed to do this. YottaPrint gives people a third wall mural option behind buying expensive wall paper or hiring a wall mural artist: create your own wall mural from your own photo!

Murals: Project of Inspiration or Act of Crime?

muralblog — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:57:59 +0000

I’m continuously amazed how murals and stories about murals either point to a project or source of inspiration or the complete opposite — “tagging” and graffiti writing landing perpetrators behind bars. I even read one story that confused the two — it made the “muralist” sound like an artist but police charged him as a “serial tagger” caught while painting “mural” (ref.: Cops: Serial Tagger Nabbed Painting Mural and Man Arrested For Painting On Bridge Wall). That muddies the semantic waters regarding the true meaning of what murals are even further — are they art or illegal graffiti? Even beautiful artistic murals I suppose are considered illegal if the artist has no regard for what is a legal and appropriate canvas, right?

No other topic seems to have relevance in both an extreme negative and positive sense at the same time. If a mural topic is not about graffiti and “tagging” somehow indicating eroding neighborhoods and criminal presence, the stories are extremely uplifting and about inspiration. Stories like:

Art club paints mural for elementary school with the phrase “Excite, Educate, Empower” inspire 4th grade students.
Mural in school library inspires Brownstown students
Mural to celebrate Tri-Cities

are examples of how murals are inspiring and used for celebration. Both the negative and positive connotation of what murals are indicate that murals do one thing well: they make lasting impressions. Murals throughout history have been used motivate people in both positive and negative ways, but the point is that they do motivate. The right message on a wall mural or the right image has the power to change the psychology of those around it. Murals are important, and more people should take advantage of their communicative power.

You can become a wall mural artist without having to learn how to paint. A product called YottaPrint allows you use any photograph to construct a wall mural the way billboards are created. Find an inspiring message or picture and change your environment and your mind. See www.YottaPrint.com for more information.

Wall Murals Command Attention

muralblog — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:09:07 +0000

More than any other type of local media, wall murals command attention in an enduring manner. Billboards and advertisements on television and radio only hope to capture a brief moment of our attention, but a well constructed mural that is properly maintained and preserved can be appreciated for years while also possibly communicating a local agenda or providing ancillary uses.

An anti-drug mural has been restored in Vallejo, CA. The original artist wanted to make a loud and enduring statement after his friend was killed in a drug related incident. A community in New Zealand just today reported about the commanding attention of wall murals — one is effective for speed bumps. “Smeaton Drive now had “natural speed bumps,” said one of the residences. “Everyone who drives past slows down to look at it.” An art collective group called Visual Love and artist Erik Beltran recently finished a huge mural in a mall in Fresno, CA. “Every time someone walks by, whether its kids to senior citizens, they just smile when they look up” says the building owner.

Wall Murals Help Curb Graffiti

muralblog — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:47:24 +0000

I’ve increasingly noticed a trend of creating murals where ugly, defacing graffiti used to be. Here in San Diego where I live this trend has been growing for some time, and it seems to be growing elsewhere as this story from Canada states – see “Police turn to artists to stop writing on the wall.”

Graffiti is the “sleazy side of murals” and I’ve always wondered why anyone would do it. I was on a recent trip by train from Atlantic City to Philadelphia, PA and noticed all the graffiti covering railway underpasses. Who does this? And with barely any of it understandable, what are they trying to convey? My only understanding up to this point is that it is to “mark territory” for gangs and the like, but it seems so creepy.

As I struggle to understand how the mind of someone that does this type of thing works, I also find it curious that the one thing that has been found to curb and even stop repeated graffiti tagging is to replace it with actual mural art — and that this works consistently and with most taggers. Is this a statement that even the criminal mind as a social group has a collective boundary to not destroy art?