It's On...

Tonight is the kick off for the Football World Cup. Everybody is excited all over the world, except in Guangzhou apparently. I spoke to my buddy there and he told me that people are too busy working to give a shit. People there life way to seriously I think. Or maybe I just don’t take life seriously enough. I should be at Man U bar tonight watching the game so if any of you spot, don’t be afraid to buy me a beer.

I am still trying to get work on the kids room can see from the pictures below; this is what it looks like now. 2 years ago we did a base coat of light blue and then used a textured roller over that to create this sky like effect.

On top of that we used these stencils for a space theme. We put in a bunch of these rockets. I already started going over them with putty before taking the pictures. I should have done some proper before and after shots but I was eager to get cracking. I was going to strip the old layers down but that was way too much effort. This way I just smooth out the wall and go over it with the new base coat. We also had stencils to create the planetary border around the room. It was a pretty cool process because we set up sort of an assembly line with each of us having certain colors. We bought the kit at Ace Hardware and I was hoping to get something relevant this time as well to make the task a bit easier. For some reason they did not have a very good range at present so I was out on a limb. I guess this is good also because now I have to come up with a fresh idea.

The bed is really big and we have these 2 large windows so there is not really a free wall for us to work on and throw in a full mural. I am thinking to go with smaller icons spread across the walls. At first I wanted to go with a Peter Pan theme. I love the whole idea of not wanting to grow up and images of tree houses and the Lost Boys but I could not find any good books with images I could replicate. Well not at such short notice anyways. My second idea is to go with a Lion King theme. This way there will be a large choice of animals I can use as well as cool back ground settings, with the big rock and all. A good image of Graffiki (the monkey) should also be pretty cool.

I had been holding out for a while on buying the base color but today is Friday and I had to make a choice. I decided to go with the color called Golden Dream. I figure one big tin should do the job; it can cover about 20 square meters. Most people think Ace Hardware is expensive when they are actually quite reasonable. The quality of paint is much better than the local brands, their choice of colors is way more extensive, and this tin only set me back almost $25.

The color really does not show off that well in the picture. It is a little bit brighter. I wanted something l that looked like dusk but not too dark. I was leaning toward a Lemon Zest but that was a bit too bright. I think and hope that this background is a good base to work off for the artist.

I was actually surprised at how hard it was initially to find a simple painter to do these pictures. In Ghana I had numerous elaborate signs and images painted on my café and work shop at a moments notice. All the people I was getting hold of here were interior designers. Today however I went down to Cikini where they have a school for the arts. I never even knew this place existed. Jakarta never ceases to amaze me. There were so many kids there all dressed in funky clothes and off beat hair styles. The walls all around were covered in awesome graffiti. I did not take any pictures cause I really did not want to attract any attention to myself. But I met this kid Stanley and he seemed cool. So he is coming over to work with me on the graphics. I guess I will report on that as the work goes along. Depending on this kids style I might just let him get creative.