Artist Inspiration - Pam Lostracco

The 'Mountain Mural' Bedroom Makeover

After doing some general research of mountains and landscapes i came across an image on Pinterest which i was immediately drawn to. After reading up about the image i found out that it was much more interesting than i initially thought. The image i found was called 'Mountain Mural' and was an article posted on the website apartmenttherapy.com which is a site i regularly use for inspiration and research. 

The article is written about one artists bedroom which she transformed by scaling up a painting she had already created. The artist is a Canadian woman called Pam Lostracco who is an artist and designer. After researching her work i have found many of her designs and paintings inspiring and can see some links between the work i have been creating and her own. I think the main influence for me would be that she works with themes found in Canada like the animals and the landscapes i have been looking at. But i was very interested to find out that the image i found so inspiring initially, was actually based on mountains in Thailand and sold as a calendar on her Etsy store.

'While traveling on many buses in Thailand and Laos, I saw endless ranges of beautiful and sometimes unusual mountainscapes. As we drove along side them, I drew the top edge of each ridge, stacking one on top of the other. The result became a new vista which is how I created this mountain design.'

I was so inspired by the initial painting that when i saw what she had created as a mural on her bedroom wall i was amazed at the talent and skill it must have taken to scale a painting up so precisely onto a wall, not to mention the creativity to think of such an original idea. 

Before

During the Process

'I composed a scaled drawing of my bedroom wall in Illustrator. Then, added a square-foot grid over the drawing which was transferred onto the wall using string. Square by square, I penciled in the drawing. The solid white (top) and charcoal (bottom) were painted first. Then I carefully blended the remaining middle colors to get a gradual gradation from light to dark.'

The Finished Mural

'This mural is 120 square feet and took 3 full days to draw the outline and paint. I used 3 different colors of paint: the white and natural white were leftovers from previous projects so only $50 was spent on a gallon of Kendell Charcoal from Benjamin Moore. The colors were selected to blend with the neutral tones in my bedspread, curtains and furniture.'

From finding one image i liked on Pinterest and looking a little bit deeper into it i have came across a medium that i would have never ever thought about. I find the idea of scaling up a drawing to create a mural a really interesting way of transforming a whole room in whatever way that you want. This imagery certainly has influenced some of the initial drawings that i created for this project but i think it mainly influenced me within my design development. As i was playing around with the idea of layering my drawings and designs up to create a slight depth within my prints, i felt that this was a good example of that. I find Pam Lostracco's work so captivating and inspiring that i could look at it all day and i would happily have one of her murals on my bedroom wall.

All images and information sourced from apartmenttherapy.com