5 exhausting days of star painting, now it’s time to relax!

December 5th, 2008

I recently came upon a wonderful opportunity to paint my amazing Starscapes artwork inside of a restaurant in Baltimore! I’ve always thought that my starry murals would be a magical thing for event venues like those that are used for parties and wedding receptions. Such romance and magic it adds to any special party!

Somehow, that kind of thinking connected me with a restaurant owner who had the same thoughts and found me online! This particular restaurant is located down by the marina in Baltimore City and it overlooks a beautiful Baltimore Skyline over the harbor. This restaurant offer upscale dining in their restaurant area downstairs while their upstairs area offer rooms for banquets, parties, wedding receptions, and similar events. Where I was commissioned to paint was upstairs inside 3 of their main arched tray ceilings.

The intent was to create a magical realistic night sky view of the stars within their tray ceilings while guests can also enjoy the full wall window views of the lovely Baltimore skyline.

With over 800 sq ft of area to paint and special painting conditions for the amount of lighting filtering into the room and dim lighting for events, this project took me 5 long and intense nights of painting at almost 50 hours total time involved in the process. I’m very glad for my little giant ladder system since these arched ceiling were over 10ft and my regular ladder wouldn’t have worked at all. Plus the foot platforms on the little giant really worked well, I don’t think I could have stand (pun intended) to paint for hours on end on a rung of a ladder.

I managed to only get one injury on the very last night of painting. I’m not really sure how I hurt my forearm actually, probably rushing at the end to finish before the sun rose. I paint while it’s dark with blacklights since I use glow in the dark paints. Speaking of blacklights, I also had one casualty when my blacklight fell from the top of my ladder down to the ground, about 7-8ft down. Thank goodness the lights I use are encased so any glass mess broke within the plastic casing instead of all over the place. And it’s a good thing I brought 3 blacklights….can you imagine if I only took one with me and broke that?

One of the tray ceiling was a true monster at 31ft by 14ft. That’s equivalent to 3 average size bedrooms, it was scary looking at how much I had to paint. By the time I was done, there must’ve been over 10,000 stars within this ceiling along with shooting stars, nebulas, planets, dazzling stars, milky way galaxy and more! It looked amazing and if the room itself could be completely dark, it would be such a fantasy view of deep space! Unfortunately, there is a lot of light that filters into the room with the large pane windows that overlook the docks. Once they install the blacklights along the ledges of the tray ceiling length, it will help super charge the stars and showcase the mural much better.

I’m really excited at the prospects of this mural job being seen by a lot of people! It really is amazing looking at the stars. Every time I finish a mural, I can’t help but smile at how gorgeous it looks. If it can make me feel that way, feel so joyous looking at my rendition of the universe, I think anyone who sees it will be amazed as well and be delighted each time they gaze up at this wonderfully magical artwork. I’m very happy that more people will get the opportunity to witness my work first hand, and I hope it brings them tons of business with this unique selling position. After all, I can’t imagine any bride not wanting to have her wedding reception under the romantic magical stars plus the gorgeous view of the skylite and the water!

I would love to get my murals in one of those upscale boutique hotels. There’s one in the city that actually have a “magical” theme but I have no idea how to even approach them with what I offer….perhaps one day I’ll connect with someone who will catch the vision with me!

I’m recovering today from all the painting, my body is truly achy from the intense painting. Star painting isn’t as glamorous as it appears, it’s tough work painting ceilings period but I do enjoy creating the art of it and seeing the final results….plus it seems to put smiles on other people’s faces too so it’s not bad at all, it’s actually the best feeling to see how happy my customers are! Let me lounge for a week and I’ll be good to go!

Christmas special is now going on. Painting dates are limited if you are looking to have it completed by Christmas time. It’s just me painting so I can only fulfill so many requests. First come, first served but I will try my best to accommodate everyone’s schedule and time frame. Now is the time to act if you want a mega deal :)

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and I hope I see you soon to paint your rooms!!

CosmicRooms.com just got a mini face lift with the website layout

November 6th, 2008

The changes are subtle in this first phase of revamping my site. The minor structural layout of my website is an improvement and will be easier for me to update my pages. If you’re a frequent visitor, you probably won’t notice much of a change, most of what I did was in the coding.

The next phase will be to update the menu buttons to incorporate the expanded categories/pages of my website throughout the years it’s been live!

I have a long list of things I want to do to update my site so it will be an ongoing process. The reason I am mentioning this is because at times, my site may mysterious go offline but be assured that I nor Cosmic Rooms are going anywhere! It’ll just be some minor site maintenance and be will be back online soon ;)

Star Posters and Star Paintings On Sale NOW!

November 5th, 2008

What’s the next best thing to having your very own starscapes ceiling mural this christmas? Well, that would be to get my custom painted stargazing posters and paintings! Available on paper, deluxe film, and canvas, my star posters will delight everyone who see it.

Posters are great for kids and adults and provides a very mobile stargazing window effect for those who live in apartments or are planning on moving in the near future. The real murals are of course better because they are full size that fill up the entire room, but the posters give the same effect in a much smaller view.

The fix for that would be to put two posters side by side to create a larger night sky viewing area. OR what’s even better would be 4 posters arranged in a square! Depending on your room size, you could practically fill up half your ceiling with a super large skylight of the stars!

A great idea is to frame out your ceiling with moulding to create a window like area. This works great for the star paintings where it’s a both a daytime clouds theme along with the nighttime stars! Frame that out and it will mimic the look of a tray ceiling that looks out into the open sky. Instantly add height and spaciness to your room with my amazing star posters and star paintings today. Get them on sale now until the end of the year here at my star posters page.

Star posters and star paintings make one absolutely unique and awesome gift to anyone this holiday season! Give the gift that keeps on giving night after night! Mention this blog post and I’ll even throw in a free colorful nebula (as seen in the deep space fantasy posters) with any star poster or star painting purchase!!

Make sure you place your order no later than December 12, 2008 to ensure your posters will arrive by Christmas. These posters are not cookie cutter posters, they are all custom paint to order, please allow adequate time for painting, drying, and shipping. Place your order early!