White siding and charcoal colored roofs? . . . Realtors might consider these safe ideas for resale value, but what if you want more? What good is a craftsman (woman) built home, if it looks like all the other houses? The truth is that people have been having fun with standard materials for years. Before starting "The Giant At The Back Door", I had worked with cedar shakes and clapboards as well as vinyl siding. Before branching out, the first thing I did was to find a suitable space to make a sampler of the more conventional patterns. (See the side panels on this page.)

Unlike other mural mediums, the first thing you have to do is learn how to overlap shingles so that they are always shedding water. Coming up with a design was not half as tricky as laying it out on the wall from the bottom up. Have you ever tried to draw a picture that way? Pretty confusing and I confess to having to redo more than a few rows as I went along. As you can see from the pictures this is on a covered exterior back stairway that is essentially trapezoid in shape and I was inspired to come up with a design that worked for this particular space.

Check the galleries below to see more:

Sidewall Art

Roof Art