Behind The Scenes: The Making of My First Mural "You Are Enough"

I'm in the process of "beautifying" my atelier. I literally went from working in a storage closet, sitting between the spare mattress from our guest bed and all my old photography equipment, to a built-in nook inside one of the cabinets with a LED panel to draw.

But as I needed more space (and for all the non-art and non-inspiring supplies to be gone), we took out one of the wall-length cabinets and that left me with a half empty room with ugly, scratched walls that didn't exactly scream "Wow, this is a cool place to create art, yo!". Back to the drawing board it was.

Yes, building out your perfect workspace takes time, but I must say that I love the process. And today's blog is all about the next step I took to spruce up the room: creating a design for and actually painting my very first mural. Follow along!

The Journey To A Functional Workspace

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to give my new-found "atelier" (as I now bravely call it :D ) the vibe of the art I create. I wanted to coat the space with the creative energy that I need to feel good while creating and to also better reflect my brand of empowerment art. If that makes sense.

I believe that the space you work in really has its effect on you while you're working.

Ugly room? That can get depressive.

Cluttered room? That can get to you.

It overwhelms me to sit in clutter. I know some people thrive on more disorganised space, but my mind just gets distracted and I immediately start procrastinating on cleaning up and not making art.

Vision for the atelier: a colorful and positive space that reflects my brand of empowering portraits, organization for all my art supplies and a way to display the art that I’m working on or collections and pieces that I’ve finished and that I want to have around me.

First on the agenda? Organisation and cleaning up!

That is why I needed some organisational stuff like a trolley, some shelves, etc. I just wanted an overall beautiful and pleasant space to work in with great lighting. I had already installed a nice and bright LED panel above my drawing surface. But my painting kit, papers and brushes were all over the place.

That took me to Ikea. I wanted to get some nice wall organizers up (a peg board with little, mobile shelves and containers, pins and hooks), as well as some acrylic shelves to put my knick-knacks and art work on. Yes, I collect cute figurines like the Japanese Sumikko Gurashi, Demon Slayers Dakis and everything Sanrio (a.k.a. Hello Kitty and Friends).

An ugly white and scratched void stared me in the face

I also was going to have to deal with the ugly empty walls. Through the years, these walls were heavily damaged from all the backdrops, tripods, and other photography gear that I schlepped around for location shoots and studio work.

Now, that everything was cleared out, the main (and plain ugly) wall just didn't do it for me. And I also knew I needed some perspective in the room. I just couldn't paint the wall white.

Inspiration for Art Studios Lead Me To YouTube, uh-oh...

What to do with the ugly, depressing walls? I wasn't sure yet. As I was studying the latest book by Chris Do, called "Unbland Yourself", I read about graphic designer, Aaron Draplin, a really interesting character with his own true style. Reading about him led me to looking him up on the web, browsing through his amazing website.

I ended up watching a series of YouTube Studio Tour videos by SkillShare (of which the first one was featured on Aaron's website). Long story short: I got the idea of creating a mural when I watched the beautiful studio of the talented graphic designer Jessica Hische and another one of artist and educator, Peggy Dean, from Pigeon Letters.

One caveat: I had never done a mural before, so I thought "Go big or go home", right?

What depicts my Empowerment Art like nothing else?

When thinking of a design that really reflect me and my art, I knew I wanted an empowering  quote that really resonates with me. My recurring quotes are “Let’s go!” and "You Are Enough".

I often depict women who go through trauma or something extremely difficult in their lives. I paint their victory, their transformation. So that became the start of my drawing: a woman, fierce, radiant, beautiful and truly "feeling it". A woman totally proud or who she is and who she has become. The woman in the mural design stands tall, has her eyes closed and her hair fiercely floats in the wind. She radiates calm and ease.

Then I integrated the rainbow-like rays of sunshine in the back. I need color in my paintings. They make me happy. And for me they radiate love. Love is love. Love yourself. Love is the answer. In the front, I kept the woman’s frame simple, and only accentuated her full lips. A kiss to herself to say: "I'm so freakin' proud of you!". 

My first ever mural of 3 by 3 meters: my biggest art piece yet

I tried to capture the proces of creating the mural as well as I could. The space isn't all that wide, but the wall is big. So I had to capture a lot in an angle. Seeing the real wall in full is something you can only do when you walk into the space. But I hope the images in the video will give you the main impression of the piece.

I started with outlining a grid of 60x60 centimeter squares with a blue chalked flexible line. Then, with the help of my boyfriend and our daughter, we mapped out the rays of the rainbow light. After that, I went in with a simple pencil to map out the actual design. All the little squares of the grid helped me with the correct line placement as I drew. Drawing on a wall without guidelines is something I wouldn't recommend, because you have no clue where exactly to begin.

A week of painting and doing the ladder and paint bucket dance

After the sketch was finished, it took me about a week to fill the wall with paint and complete the mural. And boy oh boy, was I tired! I slept really well that week, hahaha! It was a constant up-and-down on the 3 meter high ladder, carrying all the different paint buckets and my brushes, my posca markers, my cleaning rags (in case I spilled some paint or made a mistake) and a bucket of cleaning water. It was quite the workout! :D

But as the mural progressed, I felt really good. With each color and each stroke, the work started to take shape. And I can tell you that painting and sketching directly onto a wall made me feel like a naughty, giggling child the whole time. I mean, who draws on walls? Me, apparently! Haha!

Behind the scenes of making my first mural called “You Are Enough”

Below you can watch a short video of me making the mural and see the end result on my website: https://yvonnedutchartist.com/blogs/news/behind-the-scenes-the-making-of-my-first-mural-you-are-enough-studio-tour. I hope you like it!

Inspired? Or do you want your own copy of this art work?

You can also buy a copy of the You Are Enough art piece in the shop on the website by clicking the image below or by following this link here.

Thanks for reading this blog. Please feel free to reach out through the Contact Form if you have any feedback or questions.

If wish to hire me for your very own custom Empowerment Portrait, you can fill out the Portrait Application Form and I will get back to you.

For now, remember: You are enough! :D

Love, Yvonne

P.S. I will share more photos of the atelier, workspace and art shelves once the room is finished. Until then keep an eye out for the next newsletter, so you don’t miss out on any updates. Bye!