Close-Up: It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, its a tree in the living room!

Hakarl and Jili's living room trompe l'oeil is worthy of a revisit in the form of a close-up. In case you missed their house tour Hakarl created this on his wall, by hand, as the centerpiece for he and his partner's living room...

Hakarl found a few different photos of trees online and used them to create one image to project on the wall from his laptop. He then traced the outline of the enlarged composite onto the wall and taped its outline with painters tape. The most impressive part of this process is that he then took an exacto knife and gently--trying not to carve into the wall of his rented apartment--cut the tape to represent the detailed undulations of every branch and every leaf on the tree.

When Hakarl was happy with the way the his 'tape stencil' looked, he used a matte black and painted inside the lines. He wonders if would use matte paint if he were to do it again because of how sensitive it is, but so far he is very very happy with the result.

Comments (12)

How do you get your laptop to project an image on the wall?

posted by ocgrl on 2007-01-24 14:47:27

We do this all the time at our company Ocgrl you have to connect the laptop to a projector.

posted by lucy on 2007-01-24 15:20:58

I'd like to know how to get my hardwood floors that shiney.

posted by lucy on 2007-01-24 15:21:52

I'd like to know your address and when you're havin your next party :)

I still absolutely love this place, particularly the mural. Oh me, so, so lovely.

posted by Jackie (the original one) on 2007-01-24 17:46:07

.....meant "Oh my..."

posted by Jackie (the original one) on 2007-01-24 17:46:46

This is wonderful...I have been imagining something like this in my head for a while...thanks for the inspiration...

posted by Jess on 2007-01-24 20:11:20

Where did you find the photos of the trees? Everything I've seen is way more detailed and complicated to turn into a stencil...

posted by irene on 2007-01-24 21:25:42

That mural is just gorgeous; a certain kind of neutral (black and white), a certain kind of natural (trees), a certain kind of graphic (VERY), and just a wonderful combination of drama and repose.

I hope you don't mind my saying that it's also VERY right-this-very-minute style-wise. Because I mean it in a really, really good way.

I just LOVE it.

posted by Curtis on 2007-01-24 21:50:07

I'd be interested to know if anybody has a vinyl tape resource for something of this scale for those of us living in rentals.

posted by Matthew in DC on 2007-01-24 23:37:42

"I'd be interested to know if anybody has a vinyl tape resource for something of this scale for those of us living in rentals."

You mean something like this? http://domestic.fr/

posted by jeroen on 2007-01-25 06:57:13

this room is so beautiful. i love it!!

posted by brand-eye on 2007-01-25 08:34:41

Ocgrl: Mighty Girl just painted her nursery using a projector and her computer. (Description on her site, click on my name.)

posted by Beeswax on 2007-01-25 09:35:33