“When one of my favorite designers and clients, Fawn Galli, first told me she was interested in a custom mural wallpaper for the open-span three-story stairway of her new brownstone I was immediately excited to hear more.”

“…She asked me to create a forest or a jungle in the midst of a rainstorm with sun shining through the downpour, and suggested the artwork be a little off kilter, moody, and atmospheric, with a black and white palette…”

As inspiration she sent me tons of photos of plants that really speak to her. We discussed the scale of the work and I decided that rather than a single large painting it would be more interesting to do a series of individual works which would be used as elements of the completed entire piece. I began by selecting a hand made paper with a toothy surface which has intrinsic spots and blemishes from the fibers it was made from as the foundation of the work. I knew this would help create atmosphere in the background when the works were enlarged. Using primarily black ink I created several paintings of palms, ferns, trees, leaves, and rain. Although this took a few days to finish, it turned out to be the easiest part of the whole process! Once the series was complete, our design team scanned them at the highest possible resolution to retain all of the character of the paper, and then I began collaging the paintings together to complete the composition. This is the most difficult part of the process as the scale was monumental and it took several days. Once the final art was complete we set upon the layout for the mural to send to print. We decided to use a luxurious slightly textured non-woven vellum paper that is 100% sustainable and made from wood pulp which is sustainably harvested in the US.