Creating an Interstellar Project

December 8th, 2021

Liam Gent has been involved in the painting and decorating trade ever since he left school 17 years ago. 8 years ago, he became a sole trader and has never looked back!

Liam decided to make a first birthday present for his son, a stunning moon mural which can be gazed upon from his cot and a beautiful feature to his nursery.

The inspiration behind the moon was the need for a one-off piece in a nursery as a 1st birthday present for my son. I’d always thought a moon would work really well as a feature mural in a nursery, overlooking a cot/bed. I’d wanted to paint one for a while and this seemed the perfect place. Murals, especially in children’s bedrooms have a shelf life on them, in a few years they don’t want the unicorn or superheroes on the wall anymore and think perhaps this has slightly more longevity to it

Now Liam had a subject in mind, it was time to map out the mural:

The starting point for creating the moon was working from photos of the room with the furniture in place. This then determined the scale of the image and the size of the night sky. I decided to frame the piece a few inches in from the ceiling and walls to have it as a stand-alone piece. From there, it was a case of transferring the size of the moon onto the wall, simply using a nail and string tied to a pencil to get the out-line. Tesa Precision Masking tape was used to line out the frame.

Then the exciting part…adding colour!

The background colour was the first to go on, enabling me to stand back and make sure everything worked in proportion to the room. From there it was a case of painting in the moon with its base colour. We had decided to go for an off white to contrast with the furniture, but to also create a more realistic tone to the moon. It was then a case of building up the darker areas using thinned down coats of paint to create layers and add some depth, working from several different images in books and online. The colours used for the moon were taken from the Dulux Trade Fandeck. Along with White, 92BG 08/031 and 40YY 60/103 were used, then the rest of the colours were hand mixed to what I wanted

Now a base has been created, it was time to go in with the finer details… 

Texture to the moon and trying to create craters and lines was mainly achieved by just throwing a bit of paint at it and flicking paint from the brush. This was also how the small stars around the moon were formed. I wanted to achieve some level of realism to the moon, but I wanted it close-up to show that it was painted and didn’t want it to be too precise. The best thing about using paint is the ability to correct yourself. If it doesn’t quite work, you can just repaint it over it. Fortunately, this one went to plan!

We were absolutely thrilled to see Liam as one of the winners of our #ProudDecorator Competition last month and couldn’t wait to share his work! Liam has a few more murals lined up for clients next year whilst continuing to enjoy the process of transforming the rooms he decorates. Follow his work on Instagram @LiamGentDecorating.

Could you be the next #ProudDecorator? The competition for December is now open! Head over to our Instagram page to find out more @BrewersPaints.