There are many reasons that we created this incredible Sandra Boynton Room for Karsten. One (not so good) reason is that we made the incredible Dr. Seuss Room for Elijah and wanted to be fair. Mostly, we wanted to create a living space that was bright and cheery for our new little baby. And we also wanted an environment that helped spawn our child's imagination and creativity. We both enjoy Sandra Boynton books (and audio CD's) very much, and it seemed to us that most of the Sandra Boynton characters and scenes used bright primary colors. Plus, these books just make us smile. Also, I really like to draw and paint. So, after I drew up some sketches of the room using scenes from a couple of Sandra Boynton books that we had laying around the house, it was not difficult to talk my wife into the Sandra Boynton mural scheme. Sandra Boynton Room Photos | How It Was Created | Frequently Asked Questions | The Buzz

Sandra Boynton Room Photos [top] Click on these photos to view full-size versions of them! This photo shows two different scenes adapted from two different books. The characters on the left are from the book "Blue Hat, Green Hat" and the scene on the right above the crib is from "The Going to Bed Book". This photo shows a scene that I adapted from the book "Barnyard Dance!". I removed a couple of the animals from the scene in the book because I wanted to keep the mural from getting too busy. In hindsight, I think two more animals would have been okay here, though. This photo shows a better view of the "Barnyard Dance!" scene, including the tree on the back of the door. For continuity, I had to bring the water around onto this wall from the previous wall. I picked a very light color for the water so as to not darken the overall room very much. This photo shows the back of the door and the giraffe from the book "Opposites" behind the door. This photo shows some more characters from the book "Opposites". That's pretty much the whole mural, other than the little bird above the window which I forgot to take a photo of. More Photos Still To come! (Full 360 degree animation, etc.) NOTICE: Characters and scenes TM and (c) by Sandra Boynton and their use for non-profit educational purposes is allowed under the fair use clause of the copyright law.

How It Was Created or The Making Of ... [top] Sorry, but this area is still under construction! NOTICE: Characters and scenes TM and (c) by Sandra Boynton and their use for non-profit educational purposes is allowed under the fair use clause of the copyright law.

Frequently Asked Questions [top] Q. Did you draw this mural by hand? A. I decided to take the easier route this time and project the images onto the wall using a laptop computer and a portable computer projector. The projector was too close to the wall being projected onto to project the image to the full size and cover the whole wall, so I used a large mirror from our bathroom to bounce the image off of and allow the image path to be basically doubled vs. projecting directly to the wall from the other side of the room. I basically doubled the image projection path with the mirror. Of course, you have to flip the image on the computer when you bounce it off a mirror in order for it to be correctly projected onto the surface. Q. What kind of paint did you use to do this mural? A. I'm not a professional painter, so please don't sue me if I give bad advise. On my previous mural (Elijah's incredible Dr. Seuss Room), I experimented with a couple different kinds of paint. I used the fast drying glossy latex indoor/outdoor paint (Krylon Products Group) in a small can from the WalMart paint department for the blue tree on the Cat in the Hat wall. That paint dried very shiny and very tough, kinda like nail polish. But it required about 3 very heavy coats in order to get good solid coverage, so I got tired of that paint very quickly! For the rest of the mural I used the weather resistant glossy acrylic enamel indoor/outdoor paint (Plaid Enterprises, Inc.) in the little squeeze bottles from the WalMart crafts department. These are what I used on the Sandra Boynton mural too. These paints don't dry as shiny and tough as the others, but they covered very well which was a huge time saver! The tougher paint might last longer, but who has the time to apply 3 or 4 coats of detail to a large mural anyway? Is it possible to get shiny and tough water-based paint that also covers well and isn't watery? For the black outlines, instead of painting it on with a brush (like I did last time), I used a paint pen from WalMart. It seemed to go on pretty quickly compared to using paint and a brush (although it is thinner in width than my brush strokes in the other mural), but it still took a very very very long time and was the hardest and longest part of the project. Q. I don't have the time/talent/patience/etc. to do something like this on my own. Can I pay you to do something like this for me? A. Thank you for the compliment, but there are many reasons why I cannot paint murals ... not even for my close friends and relatives ... not even for lots of money. I already have a full time job and I have a wonderful family that I love to spend time with in the evenings and weekends. Painting murals is a very time consuming task, especially since I am sort of a perfectionist, so I cannot commit the time that would be required. Also, I cannot make any money from it because that would violate copyright laws and I could get sued. Q. How much time do you have invested in this whole project? A. That's a very good question that I don't have an exact answer for. It took about 6 months from initial concept to finished project. But I only worked on it a few hours during the week and probably only a full day every other weekend or so. I figure that I put in more than 150 solid hours, though. That's nearly 20 work-days or nearly 4 work-weeks. But that is only because I'm sort of a perfectionist. A professional could probably whip something like this up in just 1 or 2 work-weeks. Q. How much money do you have invested in this whole project? A. I never kept an exact total, but I have a rough idea. I probably only spent about $100.00 in materials.

The "Buzz" about the room [top] Norma writes: Great job on both the murals, they're lovely. I'm doing a mural for my son's nursery and I really like the colors you used for land masses in Karsten's room. Do you remember what color green & yellow you used in the Sandra boynton room for the land? I think the colors you used were perfect. My response: I couldn't find the paint samples that I used from the store, but I did find the paint cans in my shed this weekend. I'm not sure I know how to understand the labels, though. The base paint was a quart of Olympic premium (25 year warranty) Interior Latex Semi-Gloss in white. I got the paint at Lowe's home improvement store. The green label says it has 18 or colorant 103 and also it has 30 of colorant 111. Not sure if this is a standard that you can take to any paint store or not. The yellow label says it has 40.5 of colorant 114. And the blue says it has 8.5 of color 102, it has 0.5 of color 103 and it has 1 of color 116.

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