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10 min
I’ve been quietly working on something big for a while now, and I am beyond excited to finally share it!
My second wallpaper mural collection with Rebel Walls!
Four new designs, each available in multiple colours. But what makes this collection really interesting, especially if you’re an artist, is how it was made. And that's what I'll be covering throughout this blog post.
You'll understand how I was able to use scans of my best-selling art prints to create an entire wallpaper mural collection using my computer!
This article will show you that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. You can use what you already have and work smarter, not harder.
No repainting. No starting from scratch (well, almost, but more on that later). Just myself, Photoshop, a powerful Mac, and years of work sitting in my archive ready to be transformed.
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ll know that my first Rebel Walls collaboration included two designs: Chinoiserie Chic and Lush Foliage. And Chinoiserie Chic absolutely took on a life of its own!
It showed up in the homes of influencers, interior designers and even some celebrity homes. People were installing it all over the world and sending me photos, which made me very emotional!
But beyond the success of it, what really meant something to me was what it represented.
Chinoiserie has always been considered one of the most luxurious interior styles, historically hand painted on silk panels by specialists and reserved for the grandest homes. It’s breathtaking, but it’s also wildly inaccessible to most people. This style deserves to live in more homes and I'm so happy to be making that happen!
Rebel Walls changed that equation completely. Their wallpapers are printed to the exact size of your wall, you can install them yourself, and they even offer a peel-and-stick option for renters.
No specialist installation. No silk panels. Just beautiful chinoiserie in your home, at a price point that actually exists in the real world.
That’s something I genuinely believe in, so when Chinoiserie Chic kept going strong year after year, I knew I had to reach out and make another collection happen.
Related blog post: The Making Of: Rebel Walls 'Chinoiserie Chic' Wallpaper
When I started thinking about a second collection, I made a decision that changed everything about how the project would unfold.
I wasn’t going to paint four entirely new murals from scratch.
Instead, I went back through my archive of best-selling art prints, the ones that had resonated most with people over the years, and asked myself: what could these become at a completely different scale?
The answer turned out to be - quite a lot!
Years ago, when I first started selling prints, I had all of my paintings professionally scanned at 600 DPI. At the time it was purely for print quality. I had no idea those files would one day become the foundation of a wallpaper mural collection (but that’s exactly what happened!).
A note for artists: This is exactly why investing in professional scanning matters! The work you create and sell today can become something much bigger down the line: prints, wallpaper, licensing deals, collaborations. Your archive is an asset. Protect it!
Chinoiserie painting is a rare skill, one that can set you apart and open opportunities like this!
If you want to learn to paint in the chinoiserie style and start building your own archive of work, the kind that could lead to opportunities like this, my chinoiserie painting e-book is the place to start. It covers the style, the materials, and exactly how I approach painting these designs.
To handle files this large, I invested in a Mac Studio, and honestly, if you’re doing serious digital work with large format designs, the right hardware makes a huge difference.
The process was genuinely exciting. I created a Photoshop canvas roughly the size of a wall, chose my most beloved prints, and started building.
Using the cutout tool, cloning and layering, I could isolate individual birds, blossoms, branches and butterflies and place them exactly where I wanted. Mix a bird from one print with flowers from another. Flip a branch. Adjust the scale. Rearrange until the composition started singing.
It felt like solving a very beautiful puzzle!
This design was built around my Faraway Land art print, it's giving classic Chinese wallpaper vibes and I am obsessed with how this one turned out.
I took a few birds and butterflies from my Felicity art print, duplicated the peonies multiple times aaaaannd increased the size of them to make it feel totally floralicious!
This was the most time consuming and tricky mural to complete, but the outcome was soooo worth it!
Pine Grove was based on my Susan art print, which was a relatively small A1 size painting, I had very little design to work with so had to get seriously creative if I wanted to create an entire wall mural from it!
I brought in additional peonies from other paintings, took birds from my Elina art print, and spent a LOT of time carefully building out the ground and pond area through cloning, stamping and layering.
Every texture, every element of the landscape, all built from existing artwork with nothing repainted.
There was a lot of zooming in to pixel level, checking that joins looked natural, making sure the composition flowed the way a real landscape would. It was painstaking, but the result feels calm and atmospheric.
This was the only design I painted from scratch for this collection, but I still only needed to paint a small amount to achieve an entire wall mural.
The inspiration came from a cherry blossom mural I painted many years ago in Kensington, London (my first major mural job!) Back in my bespoke painting days, clients LOVED cherry blossom wallpapers so I knew this had to be part of the collection.
When you’re building a design in Photoshop, you don’t need to paint the entire mural. You just need enough painted elements to work from.
So instead of painting a complete panel, I started with a black and white drawing of the full composition and identified the key branches I’d actually need. Because silk painting paper is expensive and I don’t like waste, I scaled a version of the panel, arranged the branches on it like a puzzle, and made sure everything I needed would fit on a single sheet.
I transferred the sketches onto the large silk paper panel and painted the branches and blossoms in gouache to achieve that classic chinoiserie look.
Once finished, I shipped the panel to Cultural Heritage Digitisation in London for professional scanning. They are the best I've found in London for scanning large artwork, I find the quality is better than photography and they manage to get a completely even finish across the art.
The scanning bed has this cool system underneath which sucks air from under the artwork and completely flattens out all creasing. (Images of that further back in this article).
The scanned file was then sent to Path Edits, who carefully cut around every flower, branch and leaf and returned a layered Photoshop file with flowers on one layer, branches on another and leaves on another.
Working with a file like that is such a joy. Everything is separate and editable, colours can be changed with ease, and building the final design becomes much more intuitive.
I used the original black and white drawing as a guide throughout, reduced to a low opacity in the background, and layered the painted elements on top until the composition felt complete.
This involved a lot of copying, pasting, flipping, stamping etc and you'd never know this design was built from just a few branches!
I wanted at least one design in this collection that felt more botanical, without birds (as not everyone likes them). Eastern Bloom is an abundance of peonies, bamboo and butterflies in sumptuous colour ways.
It’s based on my Maria and Lily art prints, these have always been top sellers, I think people are drawn to the simplicity of the bamboo and peonies so I thought they'd be perfect reimagined as chinoiserie wallpaper.
Many years ago, I was commissioned to paint two silk chinoiserie panels for a special client. I loved creating these classic designs inspired by 18th Century Chinese wallpapers. They look fabulous as wall panels, and just as fabulous as a full wall mural!
Those files sat in my computer for five or six years.
And then, building this collection, I opened them up and realised the height of the design was already done. I just needed to repeat the panels side by side and fill in the gaps. It was quick and easy to build, and the effect is just stunning.
It’s a reminder to always think ahead. You never know what a piece of work might become. Scan your panels before they go to clients. Archive everything at the highest resolution you can. Future you will be grateful.
Once all the designs were complete, I handed the files over to the Rebel Walls team to develop the colourways.
They drew inspiration from the original Chinoiserie Chic palette, the colours that had already proven they worked in real homes, and built from there, creating options that range from rich and joyful to soft and neutral.
I usually go back and forth a lot with collaborators on colour. Lots of revisions, tweaks, compromises.
With Rebel Walls, I opened the files and nearly cried.
They were perfect. Beautiful and vibrant but also soft and liveable. Thoughtfully designed for modern interiors in a way that felt completely aligned with my vision.
Every mural in the collection is printed to the exact dimensions of your wall, made to order by Rebel Walls. Whether you’re covering an entire room or creating a single feature wall, the design scales perfectly. You can even order a small section to frame as artwork.
And if you’re renting? The peel-and-stick option means you can install it without damaging the wall.
You can explore the full collection and all colourways here.
If you love the look of chinoiserie art and want to learn exactly how to paint this unique style, here’s where to start:
How To Paint Chinoiserie Art E-book
The perfect introduction to the style, materials, and approach. Ideal if you’re completely new to chinoiserie painting.
Your Chinoiserie Path: Beginner Workshop
Step-by-step brush technique for the foundational chinoiserie elements: birds, blossoms, foliage. A great first painting experience.
How To Paint Chinoiserie Art Online Foundation Course
My full course covering composition, sketching and painting from start to finish. This is where the real transformation happens.
I also offer the brushes and silk painting paper I use in my own studio, so you’ll have exactly the right tools from day one.
The style is meditative, rewarding, and as this collection shows, it has a life that extends well beyond the original painting.
Because sometimes, a single bird on a single branch becomes a mural on a wall in a home you’ll never visit, and somehow that feels like magic.
Comments
Diane do you have any recommendations for the size for original artwork to work on prior to digital scanning? With the goal of creating my own wallpaper or large panels? Is it better to work small then enlarge or work large to keep large? What sizes did you do your original artworks on?
