Color Burst

Odds are, you’ve seen Art Bomb Brigade’s vibrant murals scattered around Akron. Marissa McClellan teaches University of Akron students to paint public art as co-director of Art Bomb Brigade and has accent walls in almost every room of her Akron home. Most recently, McClellan created a mural in her kitchen that features colorful abstract-leaning shapes inspired by Akron’s hills and a mural in her office that incorporates black and white through simple leaf designs.

“Accent walls are the perfect way to make your home more personalized, one of a kind and funky,” she says.

McClellan shares a few tips on how you can create an accent wall in your home too.

Cast a Vision. Brainstorm colors and designs that speak to you by using platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram to create a mood board of sorts. And if you’re not used to painting on a large scale, you can pick an easy design, such as geometric, and practice it on a canvas first. “A simple resolution for someone who would like to do this could be measuring out their wall. Let’s say it’s 10-foot-tall,” McClellan says. “They could separate that wall into five 2-foot sections, and just make ombre stripes or something.”

Accent walls can look great all around your house, but what is the best location for yours? McClellan recommends putting it in a larger space because it can appear overwhelming otherwise.

Brush Work. It may be a good idea to ask a paint company for help choosing colors. It’s up to you whether you incorporate more subdued colors like black, white and blue, or brighter choices like yellow. Or you can combine the two, by using Pantone’s colors of the year — Ultimate Gray and Illuminating yellow. Some warmer tones like reds and oranges tend to be more see-through. McClellan says that paint companies — she goes to January Paint & Wallpaper — can help you select the best type of paint, so that you don’t need to keep adding coats.

If you’re hesitant about which shade, give yourself time. “Put it up on the wall and live with it for a few days,” McClellan says. It’s also important to look at it in different kinds of light. Once, that changed her opinion. “I was like, I love this color. I painted it, and then at nighttime, it looked really different, and I was like, I hate this color,” she says. “You can paint over everything.”

And if you’ve never painted a mural before, McClellan recommends that you draw it on the wall in chalk first. “You can just paint inside the lines,” she says. “Once it’s dry, it’s easily wiped away, instead of trying to erase or cover up a pencil line.”

Put one color on the wall at a time. “Put all your yellows up, just so you can step back and see where they all are. Then do your greens and then moving on that way,” McClellan says. “You can see, like maybe there’s too much pink in this corner, so stop taking pink over there.”

Make sure your brushes are dry and wrap a paper towel around the base to prevent paint from dripping. If a color does drip down your design, you can fix it. “The very last step is I have all the colors open so I can do touch-ups,” she says. “If I dripped somewhere, I can clean that mess up or just tighten the line.”

Accent It. The decor and furniture in the room can serve as a pop of color against the mural or as an element that matches a color or vibe in the room or your whole house. McClellan already had the yellow table and chairs in her kitchen, so she matched the mural to it. “I was picking colors that kind of went with that table and chairs,” she says. “There’s a lot of that golden yellow in our house.” In her office, she chose a yellow-toned velvet couch to create contrast with the blue, black and white in the mural.

You can experiment with adding art, shelves and other decor on top of your mural, but step back and to make sure it all works together. “We tried to throw different things up there,” she says about the kitchen mural and adds they landed on a little collection of cheetah prints. “With all the plants, it felt right.”

She likes adventurous decor and layering but says it’s all based on your preferences and the style in your home. “I kind of want to put other things on top of mural accent walls, because I feel like it gives it more depth,” McClellan says. “You can just keep it open. You know, just let the art shine through.”

Rather leave it to the pros? Get a mural in your house by contacting Art Bomb Brigade at artbombbrigade@gmail.com or akronartbomb.com.