2,75m X 3,3m (9ft x 11ft) Kunderi 23 - 13/2, Tallinn, Estonia. 2019.
I did not have much of an online presence when I was working on this mural during the winter 2018/2019. It has been a mystery ever since! At this time of writing, there are very few people who know about this mural, fewer yet have ever seen it.
That's why I am happy to share it with you now in my blog! 😊
This is by far the largest painting I have ever done. 9 ft by 11 ft. And yes, that was my one room for everything. It was a tiny house, but at least there was a hallway with a sink, closet, and bathroom. I painted this mural on the ceiling to push back the shrinking walls!
You can see the whole process in the gallery above. Really adds some perspective I hope 😉 It was hard to capture the hole mural in one photo. I laid on the floor and couldn't get any further away to fit my ceiling in the frame.
First thing you might wonder about this mural...how did I do it?! Well long story short, with a lot tape, string, many coats of paint...and some serious neck pain! 😅 I was looking and reaching up for such a long time. If I stood straight up, my fingertips would barely touch the ceiling...so mostly I didn't need a ladder on my tippy toes. I didn't calculate how much masking tape I used, but it was multiple rolls for sure ha!. I had my trusty acrylic paints for this one, with a dash of gold spray paint in the compass.
Yeah sure, you see the compass, and the moon. But you have questions right?? Yes, the North, South, East and West in the mural point to the same directions in real life. If you followed a straight line on the North arrow from my mural, you would end up in the Baltic Sea 😁 In the mural, the N and S point to a pair of landscape paintings. The North Arrow points to a cold scene, with mountains and snow, but has a warm sky with setting sun. I tried for the opposite affect on the south. Hot desert climate with a cold blue sky. My goal was to juxtapose the ideas of north, south, hot, and cold. The E and W arrows point to a brick design, which blends the color of the two skies together. To shed some more details about these landscapes: the sun is rising on the eastern side of north, and setting on the western side of south. 😉
On a side note, there is a certain quality about compasses which I learned during this process. Think about all of the times you looked at a compass. You looked at it from a top down, right? Probably with the compass in your hand? West is on the left, and East is on the right of the compass rose. That's how it always is....
The compass rose is mirrored when you stand underneath of it. I looked up at North, saw East on the left. I double checked it so many times. The E is pointing East in reality, but appearing on the left of the compass rose as a mirror image!!
If you check the link below you can see this apartment in the street photo. The tiny yellow house:
☮♥RSM.
Thank you Albert for confirming that I am not entirely crazy! You made the first comment ever here on my blog, I appreciate you taking the time to read it. :)
So true about the compass rose! When I initially saw the mural photo, I thought that as beautiful and remarkable as it is, how could you possibly get the directions reversed? I looked at it and looked at it and thought that with as much effort you put into it, you couldn't have possibly overlooked that! It wasn't until I looked up at my ceiling and imagined the mural there that I saw that it was, indeed, correct and also that it matched up perfectly with the room I was in. Well done, Matt. Original and beautiful!