DIY Wall Mural – Paradise Falls (Up movie)

Pixar movies have always inspired me and Up is no different. Since I have seen the movie, I have started believing in the motto ‘Adventure is out there.’ The idea to grow old with Mr B and then live right next to a mighty gorgeous waterfall! I would give up anything to make this dream come true!

In the movie, Ellie draws an amazing painting of this dream on the wall of her living room. I have longed for that very same painting in my house ever since. But it took me years to convince myself that I CAN paint the same mural in my house.

I should start by saying that I am not the greatest when it comes to art work. I do have a steady hand but I am not a painter. So my fear was – what if I go wrong? I would be drawing this painting right on a wall. If it goes wrong or if it doesn’t look as good as I have imagined it to be, what am I going to do?

I finally decided to give the mural a shot anyway. I decided to paint it on a bedroom wall instead of living room so that in case it turns out to be unsightly, no one will see it except for us. Also, I made sure that I have the phone number of a whitewasher handy so that in case of a disaster I can ask him to come and repaint the wall right away.

With these two issues take care of, I got started.

DIY Paradise Falls Wall Mural

Things You Would Need

4 tracing papers – A4 size (you can also use parchment paper)

Masking Tape

A complete color palette of Acrylic color (or any special wall painting colors)

Suitable brushes

Varnish

How to Go About It

First we need to sketch the wall mural on to the wall. The easiest way to do that is this.

I didn’t know about the easy way at that time therefore I used to longest way possible. I joined all four A4 tracing papers together using the masking tape so that I was left with a huge tracing paper. I drew the painting on this big tracing paper. This was trickier than I thought. I didn’t have any downloads so I drew freehand.

If you find the painting a bit difficult, you can use your imagination and draw a simpler version of it.

I turned the tracing paper with drawing right-side down and tape it on to the wall (so that my pencil markings touched the wall) and transferred the image on the wall.

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Once transfer was done, I took the tracing paper off the wall. I secured the area around this wall sketch by a masking tape so that if I do spill colors while painting, I am not going to spoil the wall.

Filled in the colors,

I let the painting dry for a complete day. The next day I lightly brushed varnish all over the painting. Once varnish was dry as well, I removed the masking tape.

Was I proud of myself, absolutely! I don’t want to brag here, but if I knew I could do such a good job, I would have made the painting on the living room wall.