Cosmic Rooms Blog

I’ve been updating my website lately and the next page to get a face lift was the photographs page. I had quite a few photos to update to my site. I don’t always take pictures of my artwork because I’m just too tired when I’m done painting to want to mess with my camera.

The updated photos section can be seen here: cosmic rooms stargazing ceiling photographs

and the newest section is my home theatre section as I showcase a tray ceiling in a home theatre I painted last year, view those pictures here: home theatre with star ceiling

Hope that gives you some ideas on your next project!

Jean

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!!

Soon to be parents are always looking for ways to decorate their baby’s nursery. It’s great to provide a place where it’s sweet and charming for their new child. I’ve seen and painted in many babies’ and kids’ rooms with a variety of different color schemes and the one thing that always seem to fit in are the clouds and stars!

Most folks don’t think about doing something decorative for their ceiling but consider how most of the time your baby is in the room, they are laying down in their crib and staring up at the empty plain ceiling. Now imagine their delight to see a beautiful blue sky with clouds during the day and the magical glow of stars at night, just like how it is outside in real life!

Aside from the obvious beauty in having this in a child’s room, it can also provide a degree of sensory stimulation to the young child.

I am always changing my painting techniques when it comes to the clouds. Usually I’ll be driving and sees a portion of the sky that I absolutely love and I want to mimic that look in my own murals. I want to create the most realistic looking murals possible and lately, I’ve discovered this brilliant blue color that gives my murals such a natural variation in blue sky tones that resemble the views I’ve enjoyed up in the actual sky!

The key is how I’m blending these blue tones into the sky and then layering the clouds over it. It really is a sight to behold and I hope to have the opportunity to create more and more of these with my starscapes murals!

The combo is stunning and so appropriate for any room, especially for a sweet baby’s nursery.