All posts by romicortier@yahoo.com

DIY Butterfly Mural for the Home

DIY Butterfly Mural, Drawing the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Drawing the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Painting the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Painting the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Painting the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Painting the Butterflies
DIY Butterfly Mural, Creating the Drips
DIY Butterfly Mural, Creating the Drips
DIY Butterfly Mural, the completed Wall Mural
DIY Butterfly Mural, the completed Wall Mural

 

Here’s a DIY Butterfly Mural that you can create in  your home. I know it looks complicated, but when you break it down and do it step by step, it’s relatively easy. The finished product is really outstanding, and looks great in a minimally furnished environment.

I created this Mural for my home in Palm Springs to promote Modernism Week 2014. I used traditional house paint diluted with water, on top of a light weight pencil drawing. Sample colors from Home Depot were a great alternative to buying large quantities of paint.  Also, house paint has more durability and will allow for light cleaning with a damp sponge. In the video below I show you how to use an opaque projector which allows you to project nearly any image on a wall for tracing. The desert heat helped the paint to dry quickly, which allowed me to build up the layers of color. I completed the mural in about 6 hours, excluding the drawing time. The home was open to the public as a Pop Up Gallery and featured several of my original oil paintings. Included above is ‘Marilyn in Charcoal Gray’, Oil on Canvas,  (inspired by the photography of the late Bert Stern) and ‘Study for Pool Coping’, Oil on Canvas.

If this is your first time watching one of my videos, I hope you find it both inspirational, and encouraging. As I like to say: It’s only paint… you can always paint over it. Good Luck!

Welcome to Where Art Inspires Beauty!

Romi Cortier, Photo by Michael Sanville
Romi Cortier, Photo by Michael Sanville

Welcome to Where Art Inspires Beauty! After a 7 year hiatus from blogging, I feel inspired to return to the blogosphere and contribute to the world of Art,  Architecture and Design.  My intention is to focus on what’s right in our world, and help celebrate those less obvious things we might overlook. Sometimes it’s as simple as the way the light reflects off a corrugated metal fence, lighting up an agave plant. Sometimes it’s a building we’ve all driven by a hundred times on our way to work, missing it’s beautiful Art Deco silhouette, or sleek Mid-Century lines. We’re all a tad bit obsessed with our devices, myself included. So I intend to keep my head up and eyes open, as I look for beauty in the mundane. It’s a subtle shift, but once you’re on that path, it becomes easier and easier to spot it.

I hope you’ll enjoy sharing this journey with me as I sift through my archive of images that I’ve been fortunate to capture on architectural tours, vacations, and quiet moments here in Los Angeles.  I also look forward to weighing in on the current building boom here in LA, as well as the burgeoning art scene. Rest assured, I’m carrying my camera with me everywhere I go, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing from you!