Here at Sam Simon, we work on projects large and small. Most of our clients are residential, but we also really enjoy getting out into the community and working on design projects that enliven otherwise forgotten spaces. You might remember when I went back to school to help create a collaborative large scale mural, so when a parent from Chatsworth Avenue Elementary School in New York reached out to me to help beautify a large blank wall at the school, I couldn’t wait to jump in. The wall is a large backdrop to the school’s outdoor space—it faces the playground, and the kids love to bounce balls against it.
The mascot of the school is the tiger, and that’s all it took for a color palette and design direction to be born! I wanted to create tiger-inspired outdoor mural while giving it a clean and modern aesthetic.
First the entire wall was coated in several layers of almost electric citrus orange exterior paint by Benjamin Moore.
After several coats of paint, a juicy new orange background prevailed! We then painted diagonal black lines that stream down the surface like lightening and added detail to create oversized tiger stripes. By blowing up the scale of the tiger print, the look of the project becomes modern and on trend.
Now that it’s complete, the project has a fun, electric feel. We were able to take the spirit of the Tigers and translate it into a modern look that really adds to the play in the playground!
So does this wall make you growl? What other patterns would look great in a large scale for an outdoor mural?