As far as I can tell, every man must endure his pregnant wife's nesting instincts to "paint the nursery." Being the artsy-fartsy type, the responsibility fell squarely on me (not to mention the fact that a pregnant lady + paint fumes = hurling momma). After denouncing Pooh themes and the like, I had a vision...(cue the smoke and odd music)...

Christopher's First Nursery in Coralville, Iowa - March 2003

I wanted Christopher (my first son) to feel like he was living in a jungle with his furry friends. So after about three long months, it was a reality. (About one month into it, I realized just how long it was going to take and I was tempted to quit, but half-painted rooms don't go over nearly as well.) Unfortunately we moved about one year after the nursery was finished, so...

Cooper's Nursery in Olathe, Kansas - Sept 2005

This was the second nursery I painted (See a larger image), and it took much less time than the first. In the first nursery, I drew it on the wall in pencil first, and I used photos of real animals as references. For this nursery, I just painted it freehand and used Disney characters as references, which were much easier to paint because Disney did the 'characterization' of the real creatures for me. I also started dabbling in sponges, and even tried painting some sea vegetation with a mop! (Which totally didn't work, by the way, and made a huge mess.)

Christopher's Room in Olathe, Kansas - Nov 2005

Here's Christopher's second room (badly photographed), which continued some themes from his first nursery but added some characters from The Jungle Book, Lion King, some landscapes from Shrek, and some Kansas sunflowers and fall leaves. Unfortunately the really pregnant wife cut me off a bit early, so I'll probably never consider this one totally 'done.' What was left, you ask? Baloo the bear should be floating on his back in the water (between the bunk beds), Donkey (from Shrek) should be poking his head out of the sunflowers, Timone should be riding on Pumba, and something should be in the Tree of Life's foliage. Oh well. Christopher and I also put a glow-in-the-dark solar system on his ceiling, which he thinks is pretty cool. (Okay, so do I.)

So we moved to Lawrence in 2006, where my kids' walls are a boring beigy-yellow. It's about time to get started again, I'm afraid. I might try messing with the scale in my next rooms (ie, Bug's Life type of thing)..