Wondering what kind of paint you should use for a mural you’re doing? Let me share some of my experiences when picking out paint and from where.
Photo Credits to Pexel.com
I paint all of my murals with exterior house paint and I get it from three different paint stores. Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, and Lowes.
Sherwin Williams is my personal favorite. I am always able to find the colors I need, I get in and out quick, and my business account gives me the benefits of saving a little bit of money. They have promotions often and on top of that their sample sizes are definitely more bang for your buck. Their “sample sizes” are quarts which is much more than the sample sizes at Home Depot or Lowes.
My business account allows me to charge everything to my account and pay it off at the end of every month from home. It’s also 0% interest so it’s like they’re basically giving you a helping hand without asking for anything in return besides to be their customer and spend all your money at their store instead of their competitors. Believe it or not, I’m not getting paid to say all this. I’m simply expressing my love for my number one choice for paint stores.
Home Depot
Second runner up is Home Depot. I somehow always have good luck in Home Depot, between quality of paint and friendliness of staff. I mean they even have hotdogs roasting out front as you enter, it can’t get more homey than that. They also give you free can openers with your paint which I haven’t experienced yet at other stores. I have a tendency of buying samples there more than I do quarts. The samples last me quite a while and since they’re only $5-6 I can get a whole array of colors.
Lowes I’ve had more bad experiences with than good due to pricing of paint and low staff. More than a few stores, I have experienced too many people in line and only one person working. One employee actually told me one day it’s because they don’t want to hire more people because that means they have to pay more… so whether thats true or not. The energy just hasn’t been right for me there. Everyone has different experiences and some will like other stores more than others.
Photo Credits to Pexel.com
I say just get out there and find your comfortable routine. See what fits you more as an artist and what stores carry what YOU want for your style of art.
Besides these 3 stores I go through Amazon for one specific paint. This paint is called “Mural Paint”. You really can’t forget it the name and once you use it you won’t forget the product. It is by far the best paint I have used for murals. The colors are so bright and vivid. The gold and silver are super opaque which is hard to come across for those two colors specifically. I painted a logo on a distillery with the gold “Mural Paint” and I was astonished at how beautiful it was. This paint was a game changer to the quality of my murals.
Here is the link to the two sets of “Mural Paint” if you’re willing to take a walk on the wild side. Mural Paint Set 1 Mural Paint Set 2
Gold “Mural Paint” used at Tom’s Distillery, painted by Summer DeSalvo
What kind of finish will your paint be?
Flat (matte)
Flat I don’t personally use that often. I believe that it would be exceptional in a paint that I would use for sand, the ground, or anything rough just to add texture.
The positives are that it looks great in rooms with a lot of light and it’s great for walls that have a lot of bumps or scrapes as well. It gives easy coverage.
The only negative about flat paint is that it gets dirty easy and leaves marks from finger prints or smudges from my experience.
Satin
This is my personal favorite due to it being so versatile. Most paint stores only offer samples in satin as well so it’s good to have consistency with your other paints if you’ll be mixing them. It’s that perfect sweet spot between flat and glossy. It’s also easy to clean.
Satin is also what I recommend for outdoor murals. Since it’s easy to clean it can be sprayed down with a hose or scrubbed with a wet rag to get dirt off of it when needed.
Semi-gloss
Semi-gloss is the fancy paint. It gives the walls a sleek and classy look. I recommend semi-gloss for faux walls or anything that you want a low shine to. If I’m not using satin paint then this would be my next option.
Gloss
This is what you use when you want something to look shiny, wet… glossy. I love using glossy paint when I paint water in a beach scene. It looks especially good when the water goes over a “flat finish” sand.
Glossy “Ocean” hallway mural painted by Summer DeSalvo
Add-ons
Aside from using exterior house paint I like to use spray paint, a paint gun and an airbrush gun.
Spray paint I use to fill in areas, add shadowing behind an object or to stencil something.
Paint spray guns I use for large backgrounds. The guns are capable of being filled with my exterior house paint and then mixed with some water to thin it out. This option gets the background done in a ridiculously quick time manner.
Airbrush guns I use for shading and detail within my image. It makes a huge difference in your murals when you’re able to get perfect shading down in small areas. It adds more realism and detail to the finished product as well so it’s a win-win when enhancing the quality of your murals.
My airbrush equipment I also buy off Amazon Airbrush Set Airbrush Colors
These “Add-ons” I will be talking more about very soon in a future post!
With that being said PLEASE subscribe to my email list to follow up with all the topics I will be covering on how to become a muralist for a living. I will also be doing giveaways and starting up tutorials to share more detail about the process of the job.
Thank you so much for reading and any feedback or questions are appreciated to point me in the right direction for future topics.
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