Library Children's Room Mural completed!

We recently finished the murals for the Children's Room in the Burlingame Public Library. I am so thrilled with the transformation of this space!

<----- Sierra as Melisande


The mural was commissioned by the Burlingame Library Foundation to commemorate the centennial celebration of the Library.


My goal was to create a mural that appears original to the room, as though it's always been there. Indeed it is hard to imagine the room without the paintings.





The North "main" mural wall is about 37 feet wide and the ceilings are 20 feet high. The first 5 feet of the walls are filled with bookcases, so all of the murals had to be painted with perspective from below eye-level.

There is a large metal grate and a little maintenance door in this wall, that I worked into the design, so the architecture became part of the composition of the mural.







I had a lot of fun re-imagining this little door area, to make it an entrance to a castle, or possibly, another world.

Faraway Castles, approx. 9 feet wide

We added images all around the room, so the room becomes a story, its walls the pages of a favorite book.
Details like tiny faeries, mice, and California poppies become more noticeable when you get up close.

(click on images to view larger)

See my previous post for work in progress images, and more about this project

Centennial Mural story in San Mateo Times

Bay Area Art Quake review by Phil Gravitt!

My thanks to:
Burlingame Library Foundation for their support and this amazing commission
the Burlingame Librarians for all their research and enthusiasm
interior design consultant Michelle Nelson
and to the ladies of my atelier: Sierra Helvey and Melka Myers.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Library Children's Room Mural- in progress

The Russian Prince brings home the Firebird

This week we will be finishing a large children's room mural for the Burlingame Public Library,

Commissioned by the Burlingame Library Foundation, the murals draw inspiration from the "Golden Age of Illustration" the great storybooks of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, like Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham.

The Burlingame Library is a charming Spanish Revival style building was designed by architect E. L. Norberg and completed in 1931.
The children's room is a large space with soaring, beamed ceilings, textured plaster walls, and a lot of odd angles. This presented a challenge as there is no one focal point to the room, nor is there a large uninterrupted space where one might normally site a mural.
So I designed a mural that uses the architecture, grates, doors, and arches, as part of the composition.

Work in progress on the north wall.

We painted the murals on canvas in my studio, then glued to the walls and in some areas, additional painting is done on site.

The Foreign Prince, being cut out prior to installation.

installing the castle mural in an arch

The Burlingame Library will "unveil" this mural during their Centennial celebration on Sunday, October 19, 2008.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting