creating a mural on modern-day motherhood
sunnydayz mural festival
Sunnydayz Mural Festival is geared specifically towards highlighting and empowering women and non-binary artists. The festival adorns walls of a new city each year, and in 2024 found itself in rural Ponca City, Oklahoma.
Applying alongside over 500 other artists, I was honored to be accepted as a newcomer mural artist (along with my sister as my day of help). Then started the work of actually coming up with what to paint!
Having free range on subject matter, I decided to combine my love of character illustration with something I’m equally passionate about -- Motherhood.
TL;DR
Project Type
Mural Festival
Deliverables
10 ft x 12 ft outdoor mural
My Contribution
Concepting, Design, Installation
Initial Concepting
At the beginning of the sketching process, I knew I wanted to feature female characters and create something that conveys emotion. I started out sketching the idea of masking and showing how you never really know what someone is struggling with by just a look. Ultimately, this led me to think of everyone in my life who does this and a lot of them had motherhood in common. Drawing on those experiences, I started sketching a “super mom” who is doing all the things while no one notices the mental load of running the house.
Painting Process
No matter how much you’ve planned, there’s nothing more daunting than starting from a blank white wall (or sketch page, or figma frame, you get the idea). Luckily, with the help of researching and advice from our professional mural friends, we had at least an idea of how to get started. We covered the entire wall with our main color then traced the outline in pencil to give us a guideline for filling in the remaining colors. With this being our first mural, I kept the design very simple and color blocked to be visually bold but technically easy to execute. Besides not knowing how to move scaffolding in a rock bed and our projector dying 4 times while tracing at night, we managed to successfully bring the mural to life.
Final Direction
This experience was so incredible. We learned so much, talked to so many amazingly talented artists, and created a piece of art in a community we grew up going to to visit grandparents. Perhaps the most rewarding part of all of it was having all of the moms stop and tell me how I captured exactly how they feel, always juggling everything for everyone. Special shoutout to the mom who asked me to take her picture with her “favorite mural” before she knew I was the artist <3.
3 days
to complete
10 ft x 12 ft
dimensions
~ 3 gallons
of paint
