How I ended up painting flowers for a Brooklyn Cafe
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how I get mural opportunities with NYC businesses. The truth isn’t particularly glamorous- it’s by consistently putting myself out there, even though that’s tough sometimes! This is the story of how a small seed planted with a halloween window led me to paint this big, realistic, floral mural.
Me in front of the Brooklyn Cafe Mural for Volare
Giving out flyers
It all began with me arriving in New York and not knowing anyone- having exactly no mural clients. I’m not the most technical person to tackle things like email marketing, but I absolutely love a chat. So I decided to flyer, and over one long day I flyered from Park Slope to Atlantic and back again. Every single business said no, except for one, Volare cafe.
The halloween flyer I made
The Kraken window (my first window mural)
Painting window murals
They were the first people who trusted me to paint stateside, and I began with a very large Halloween Kraken (which, admittedly, plenty of people just thought was an Octopus!). It was my first time painting windows and very dramatic as I painted at the same time there were hurricanes in the US, culminating in quarts of paint being blown over onto the road and dropping my phone in a bucket of water.
Around a month later, I came to remove and paint a new design for fall, It was my first time removing a window mural and I spent around 4 hours climbing up and down the ladder, carefully scraping off the paint and then cleaning all the windows twice to remove the debris. This whole experience was a learning curve, there is a reason people don’t normally paint the seasonal window mural over the ENTIRE window. Once this was done I realized I only had a few hours to paint up the new design (these are one day jobs). I was applying paint unmixed on the brush and pushing to get something down (my deadline was the end of the day). I was really running against the clock. And all this while working in the street in public, and realizing I wasn’t going to be able to do my best work. The client told me it was ‘fine’, however I wasn’t aiming for fine, and I was concerned she wouldn’t have me back.
The dreaded halloween window - not my best work
Much happier with my winter bears!
After this, I talked to the owner and we decided I would just paint the windows, not clean them too. So I came back on an incredibly cold day and painted polar bears wearing Italian colored scarfs (it’s an Italian cafe). It was quick, fun and I enjoyed using sweeping brushes to get all that fur down!
Me in front of the Alice in Wonderland Mural
A shot of the new window mural
Personal growth in my painting
Getting more into the flow, I painted an Alice in Wonderland window dedicated to the owner’s sister. These window murals have really improved my ability to paint fast and built my confidence. It’s like driving- the most important thing is miles on the road! In the meantime I’d been painting a custom mural for New York restaurant Pasta Louise and getting into my rhythm.
The Pasta Louise Restaurant Mural
A close up of the detail
As I mentioned before, I’m a chatterbox, not something I ever really thought would be an asset. I popped into Volare to have one of their cappuccinos. They have such a big black wall in there. It’s was just so EMPTY. If there’s ever a space that needed a mural- it’s there. I pitched to Jenny and Sean my idea to paint some flowers and they went for it.
Below you can see the final design, if you’d like to learn about the painting techniques and process behind this mural, I’ll go into more detail on my next post. Or if you’re looking for a NYC hospitality mural, feel free to reach out for a chat!
The newly painted flower mural in NYC cafe Volare
Behind the scenes shot of me painting
