by Paul Borne, sign painter/president, Big City Signs Inc.

At the beginning of 2019 our client Norwalk La Mirada Unified School District came with a design they wanted hand painted onto the new preschool building at Moffitt Elementary School in Norwalk CA.

It appears to be not that large, and in fact it’s only 5 ft x 5 ft — but the detail is challenging. There are about 36 (plus black and white) separate and distinct colors in this project. I had to get it right!

As with all our hand painted school mural projects this one started with the client’s design being formatted as a vector graphics file, so the design could be drawn using that file full size on the pen plotter on paper. After that, the lines drawn onto the paper are perforated with an electric tool that burns tiny holes in the paper where the pen traces the lines.

So then it was off to the building - a beautiful spring day in Southern California!

Of course, all of the colors had to be matched in oil-based enamel paint. 36 or so colors plus black and white, all of them matched in small batches by eye by … me. That was a long day!

The next step is to tape up the paper pattern in its proper location, and rub charcoal in a cloth bag over the lines to transfer the design to the wall.

Then it was time to get some painting done. Here are a couple of shots along the way…

And finally, two full days after starting, the project was complete.

You might be thinking about getting this kind of project done, Do you know where to start? I can tell you - contact me, Paul Borne (president of Big City Signs) to find out more.

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