So I drew up some sketches and got the okay for this one:

And calmly began painting in the background.

Then the snags began. My oh-so-smart idea of projecting the image onto the wall failed miserably. The room was too shallow for the image to project accurately and I spent the day wrestling with it.

Finally, I just gave up and drew everything freehand. Which was quite time-consuming.

And of course my pencil marks were so messy, I had to outline in paint just to see what I had drawn.

It was quite a relief to actually start painting color. But to get to this stage took about twice the amount of time anticipated.

And at this point, I just hope I get the mural done before the baby gets here!

to be continued...