I was recently offered a chance to create a temporary mural installation in the Loo Gallery at the wonderful
Lamplighter Roasting Company here in Richmond, Virginia.
The Loo Gallery is actually their bathroom and each installation is painted over when the next artist creates their piece!
I decided to create a new wallpaper damask style pattern using only the bones of the human skeleton. I had previously created a
smaller wallpaper pattern as part of my original Skull-A-Day project, but I had never done something so complex.
Since the end result was so large and complicated it required two 18" x 24" stencils to create one complete section of the pattern.
I had my friends at
BIG SECRET laser cut two sets of the stencils out of thick, flexible mylar and I worked with them in rotation, since they would quickly start dripping from the layers and layers of metallic spray paint I was putting on them.
The installation took three days – or rather nights, since I was coming in after hours to give the toxic fumes a chance to air our before customers would arrive in the morning – to complete. Of course I wore a
Bane-style ventilation mask the entire time so that I wasn't breathing in the fumes either...
And who knows, maybe this will get turned into actual wallpaper one day, like my
Ornamental Skull wallpaper at Designer Wall Coverings & Fabrics.
In the meantime you can download a PDF to make your own stencil
HERE. You'll need to make two copies of it and flip and reverse one to get the full repeat. It's available under a
Creative Commons license, so use it for any personal project you like, just don't sell the stencil or the results for profit. And of course if you do use, please share a picture of the result!
