What type of paint to use when painting a mural?

I'm painting a mural in my baby sisters room. To save on paint, we were just planning on painting the mural onto the primer. Is that a bad idea? What type of paints would work best for this?What type of paint to use when painting a mural?
Painting onto primer is what primer is for. Primer seals the drywall or wallboard to make a better bond for the final paint no matter what kind of paint it is.





I would say that what kind of paint depends on how many colors and the design you have. How much the square footage is also. If you are doing a big rainbow for instance you could use small cans of latex interior paint from regular paint store. A more detailed artistic painting that will require more colors and more area to be covered I would use Tempera mixed with acrylic medium. A small amount of medium will set the paint making it more permanent. After I would use an acrylic wall varnish available in the paint store. Sign painters doing window lettering use this method.





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The trouble with acrylics if you have large areas to cover is the expense. Using tempera with a little acrylic medium and coating it after will be perfect and less expensive. You can buy it even in gallons.What type of paint to use when painting a mural?
I'm a 22 yearart teacher (who just posted the ? about what to use to refill empty yellow watercolor paint pans). My classes have painted loads of murals. Yes, acrylic (as in waterbased) housepaint over primer will do well (if it's a huge mural). The little plastic containers of liquid acrylic would be truer colors and more subtle choices if it's for little paintings. But here's the deal. If you're looking for some true colors, like red or blue for a childrens mural, they're just about impossible to find.They might LOOK true at the paint store, but you get them home in true light they are always way OFF.


I have had the worst luck with the reds, never got one I liked ever until this year. Say you used it to mix your own orange (by adding in yellow) - it would be all wrong. In other words it's not a true red in any way. Wal-mart used to sell pints of true colors (instead of the traditional gallon sizes) or was it half gallons, whatever, but they were true blue, true yellow, and true red. A bit more expensive but very well worth it if you needed that/those colors. That's what I used to do in my own kids' rooms when they were little.





department and the guy told me, ';Hey, you can ask for these bright colors here, and showed me the super expensive paint brand sample strips. He said I can mix it as the cheap store brand.'; And he did it. The colors I came home with were great, bright and true for the first time. He said he just used the recipes for the mix for the bright colors. That he can mix whatever he wants and still sell it in the cheap brand gallon. My guess is that he just added loads more pigment, and probably the store would loose a lot of money in that depeartment if everyone knew they could 'have' the expensive colors in the 'cheaper' brand. I hope this makes sense. I just showed him the paint swatch strips for the bright colors I really wanted and he mixed them and sold them in the cheap can. Oh, and foam brushes are the way to go for adding details like for an impressionistic landscape. And have you ever seen the great effect from crushing a Wal-Mart plastic sack and dabbing a darker color on it? Looks like marble !
You can use acrylics. Cheap (you know Delta) types. You get what you pay for though. That being said, if they intend to change the room after a while, painting over a mural, depending on the colours and thickness can be a real pain in the butt. Keep coats thin. If coats are thin, then the cheaper acrylics won't be for you as they more often than not, need multiple upon multiple coats.
I painted a mural onto my wall. You can use acrylic paint, it works great. You don't need a lot. (In my opinion, Liquitex is the best brand.)





Good luck!