Murals in Derby

Murals in Derby, painted with a brush straight onto the plaster, turn a plain wall into the centrepiece of the room. Zavoré designs each one for the space it fills, so it follows your doors, windows and alcoves instead of repeating from a roll. Our home is Birmingham, where the Academy stands, and our own artists travel the UK. You can start with a few photos of the wall and whatever pictures, colours or ideas you keep coming back to.

Painted walls and a city that paints flowers

Derby has a painter tradition of its own. Joseph Wright of Derby became famous for scenes lit by candle and lamp, and the city's porcelain makers were admired for the flowers painted on their ware. A mural belongs comfortably in that line, a painted surface made by a steady hand for a particular place.

The houses give plenty to work with. A Victorian hall and stairwell in Darley Abbey or the Arboretum area often has height and a turning flight of stairs that a painted sky or climbing branches can follow upward. A dining room in a Georgian townhouse near Friar Gate suits chinoiserie, the blossom, birds and branches of hand painted wallpaper that British houses prized in the eighteenth century. A Chaddesden or Littleover semi, with a plain through lounge, can have one wall turned into a landscape.

Styles we paint

• Chinoiserie, with branches, blossom and birds, on the bare wall or on a ground of gold leaf, silver leaf or grasscloth.
• Floral and botanical, large scale flowers and foliage, from one statement bloom to a whole room of garden.
• Scenes and figures, landscapes, skies and bold large pieces, such as the Derbyshire dales and Peak District hills.
• Children's rooms, ceilings and stairwells, where a scene can lead the eye upward.

A painted mural has no seams and no pattern repeat, which printed wallpaper cannot avoid. The drawing is made for your wall, adjusted as the painting grows, and nobody else will have the same one. Our main page on hand painted murals shows more of the styles.

For homes and for hospitality in Derby

At home, a mural might fill a feature wall, a dining room, a hallway, a stairwell, a ceiling or a child's bedroom. In business, the bars, restaurants and cafes of the Cathedral Quarter and the city centre, along with hotels, gyms, offices and shops, can use one to give the place a character of its own, with a logo or lettering painted into the scene. Hard working walls get a protective seal over the finished painting, so it can be wiped down.

Plaster and paint can be planned together. Over a limewash or marmorino ground, the soft movement beneath the colour gives a painting something like the depth of an old fresco, and we can supply both.

How a mural in Derby is commissioned

Everything starts with your photos, the wall size and your ideas, and plenty of small questions can be settled from the pictures. Once we have the brief, we sketch the mural at the scale of your wall, and the colours are agreed before a brush is loaded. If the wall is not ready, we tell you so, since a mural only holds up on a sound surface that has been prepared properly.

Because Derby is some way from our centres, we plan the painting in blocks of days, so the artist can stay with the job. Dates are fixed after the design and price are signed off, and the work then happens in your room. More detail is on our hand painted murals installation page.

Learn to paint, or add other finishes

We teach whatever we install, and the same courses run at our centres in Birmingham, London and Manchester. The training page lists the courses. A mural also sits well with other finishes from our decorative work range, particularly a gilded background or a plastered wall.

More decorative work in Derby

A gold leaf background for your painting is covered under gilding in Derby. A scene sculpted rather than painted is described under bas relief in Derby, and repeating raised patterns under sculptural plaster in Derby. The edge where wall meets ceiling is the subject of cornice and coving in Derby.

You may also like lacquered walls in Derby, mosaics in Derby, artificial rock in Derby and travertino in Derby. For the plastered walls that make a good ground for paint, read Venetian plastering in Derby, and for an overview, see our decorative finishes specialist in Derby page.

Questions about murals in Derby

Can a mural be based on my own picture or idea?

Yes. A photograph, a pressed flower, a mood board or a half remembered garden can all be the starting point. We turn it into a drawing scaled to your wall, and you approve it before painting starts.

What is chinoiserie, and can it be painted on gold leaf?

Chinoiserie is the European taste for Chinese style, familiar from the hand painted wallpapers of blossom, birds and branches that reached British houses in the 1700s. Yes, it can be painted over gold leaf or silver leaf.

Will a mural cope with a busy hallway?

On a well prepared wall a mural lasts for years, and a hallway that sees coats, bags and bicycles gets a protective seal so marks wipe off.

Do you paint murals for businesses in the city?

Yes. Bars, restaurants, hotels, offices and shops all commission them, and a name or logo can be painted into the picture.

You can ring 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or write to sales@zavore.co.uk, sending photos, rough measurements and the postcode. If a plastered ground is part of the plan, our sample board is the place to start.