Freelance Children's Book Illustrators : Minneapolis, Minnesota

0 Kudos

5.0 2 Skills

$100 Rate/Hr

Michael Cooper is well into his third decade of painting large-scale custom murals. Since starting Murals & More LLC in 1990, he has designed and painted wall murals ranging from small interior residential projects to enormous hotel interiors to massive exterior highway projects. Also an accomplished decorative painter, he has transformed many surfaces into fabulous brick, intricate marble and classic Italian Plaster. He is internationally renowned for his attention to detail and his ability to create realistic and whimsical trompe l'oeil murals. People have simply been amazed at discovering what they thought was a series of wrought iron balconies or a clumsily placed ladder was actually a flat painted surface. Cooper founded Murals & More LLC after painting murals as a hobby for nearly his entire life. His first association with a mural was actually in his hometown of Memphis, in the first grade, (too many years ago!) where his winning drawings were incorporated into a large tile mural, which still exists today. Even though his specialty is large-scale murals and decorative finishes, Michael has also provided his clients with painted furniture, ceiling murals, floor cloths, backdrops, sports murals and many other specialty items. His most recent commercial projects include a 150' mural of underwater activity in the natatorium of the Kingsport, TN., Aquatic Center, turning a 50' silo into a massive copper keg with enormous beer taps for Yazoo Brewery, a 100??? canvas mural for Vanderbilt Children???s Hospital, a 40' x 60' "carved Carrera marble" cherub in Downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a 50' x 150' "architectural wallpaper" mural in Indianapolis. (And that's not even mentioning his residential projects!) In order to share his over 20 years of experience as a professional mural artist, Michael (and Mickie!) has also been teaching classes in the art and business of mural painting in their large Franklin studio, as well as seminars throughout the country. He has authored an instructional DVD on "How to Paint Murals", and he has his own line of custom mural brushes (the Michael Cooper Signature Series), as well as various other custom tools. He is a member of the Artist's Advisory Council and the Community Relations Board for the Frist Center of the Visual Arts, a teacher with the TPAC ArtSmart Program, an avid racquetball player, and, in his spare time (really?), Mike plays a decent 12 string guitar and a mean djembe. And if it weren't for his wife, Mickie, he wouldn't be here at all!