Scavenger Chic

DIY – Kids Room Jungle Mural

• By Joan
• July 14, 2021
• 5 Comments

Kids Room Jungle Mural

Today I bring you a jungle mural that I painted in my middle son’s bedroom when he was about 5 (he is now 32).  Somewhere around the time he turned 10, when it seemed he was getting a little too old for a jungle themed room, he offered to switch rooms with his younger brother.  The alternative was to paint over the wall.

It didn’t matter to me, I could get a few more years out of the wall.

Twenty-two years later, younger brother has just graduated from college and we still have a jungle mural.  I have offered to paint over it many times but I’m not allowed.

IKEA bookshelves go Horizontal

The rest of the room has gotten a makeover since then like this mismatched metal file cabinet desk.  But the animal mural never got touched.

I’m pretty good at copying and drawing inspiration from other peoples artwork.  I’m not so good if I have to come up with a picture of my own.  Find what inspires you.

I drew my inspiration from books we borrowed from the library.  The first book,  Kenneth Lilly’s Animals , published in 1988, is  a beautiful collection of 60 paintings of animals and their babies.  Sadly I couldn’t find a copy in the local library to show you his original artwork, but his animals were my inspiration pics for the lion, hippo, giraffe, gorilla and elephant.

The remainder of my animal inspiration came from The Great Kapok Tree , written in 2000 by Lynne Cherry. “About a man who exhausts himself trying to chop down a giant kapok tree. While he sleeps, the forest’s residents, including a child from the Yanomamo tribe, whisper in his ear about the importance of trees and how ‘all living things depend on one another’.”  Amazon

Because I drew inspiration from 2 different books not all my animals would  naturally go together in the animal kingdom.  Those from The Great Kapok Tree would definitely be from South America and the Amazon, while most of the remaining animals would be more comfortable on the Savanna in Africa. I think they can all get along. 😆 

From the Great Kapok Tree I used some of the vegetation, the macaw and the toucan.

I painted all of the birds, insects and animals first, then attempted to add foliage around them.

You’ll see the black and white butterfly in the next picture.

The elephant was from the Lilly book and the other animals belong in the rainforest in The Great Kapok Tree.

When I first painted the wall there was an IKEA Billy bookcase covering up half the elephant all the way to the left on the wall.  Since I had no intention of moving the bookcase I didn’t bother to finish the wall behind it.  It wasn’t until years later when the room got rearranged that I finally had to finish the jungle mural. 

The entire wall was painted with those small little bottles of acrylics you can buy at any craft store in every color imaginable, many for under $1.  I used lots of green hues so stock up on those. The animals were drawn first and the vegetation just filled in around those guys.

I hope I’ve inspired you, sometimes you just gotta go for it.  You can always paint over a wall ( if your kids let you).

Stay inspired.

    These two projects also resided in the jungle room at one time.

Just the top bamboo valance was in the jungle room, though you could use the pallet one as well.

Kids Table and Chairs

And this FAO Schwarz inspired table and chairs.