A muralist designs and applies paintings onto large surfaces such as walls, ceilings, and buildings.
Muralist
Muralist
VIRTUAL JOB SHADOW
Welcome to your first day on the job! Watch this video to see what a day in the life of a Muralist is like.
Click for salary, education, & more: Muralist (Muralista)
Creating a mural takes lots of planning and preparation. Once you start painting a mural, it’s very hard to fix any mistakes! Muralists make small-scale sketches of their designs before painting on the actual mural space to avoid these mistakes and ensure their design fits on the surface. In this activity, you’ll try your hand at sketching out your own mural!
STEP 1: Find an area in your community where you would like to paint a mural. (Hint: look for any large, undecorated wall spaces that are flat and even)
STEP 2: Once you’ve found your mural space, measure the whole area, including the width and height of the space. Make sure you write these measurements down!
STEP 3: Sketch your mural design! Think about the colors and shapes you want to include in your mural. Be as creative as you want; this is a rough sketch so don’t worry about making it perfect.
STEP 4: When you’ve finished drawing your mural design, grab a sheet of graphing paper. Based on the measurements of your mural space, decide on what the scale of the graphing paper should be. Ex: one square on the graphing paper = one foot on the mural space.
STEP 5: Now that you’ve chosen the scale of the graphing paper, draw the “final copy” of your mural on the graphing paper. Include color and a note somewhere stating the scale of the graphing paper. Then share your mural drawing in the Student Showcase! If you think you have a really cool idea, talk to the person who owns the wall you had in mind. See if they will commission you to actually make your mural!