Picasso Moon Painting Offers ‘Something Artful,’ Says Owner

BY PAUL BICKLEY

Driving home one day in 2003, residential and commercial painter Tim Murphy was thinking of leaving the company he was working for and going out on his own. Then the Grateful Dead song “Picasso Moon” came on the radio. “In the song,” Murphy says, “the clouds part and the moon appears.” The lyrics inspired him to start a business, and even provided the name. That same year, Murphy launched Picasso Moon Painting.

Murphy specializes in interior residential and commercial painting. He has done jobs as varied as painting a lawn totem pole to painting a 3,000-square-foot home inside and out. His commercial clients include the Uptown Cafe and several medical offices.

Murphy, 47, also paints beach-, space-, and dinosaur-themed murals for children’s rooms and, as a volunteer, has created murals for the Monroe County CASA playhouses, which are displayed around the city and raffled annually. “I’d love to get more calls for murals,” he says.

Murphy also refinishes kitchen cabinets. Using a primer and a hard-adhesion, durable, water-based, low-volatility finish, he says the cabinets look as though they’ve been factory-sprayed. “I give kitchens a facelift for less than one-third the cost of replacing cabinets and countertops, and it only takes a week.”

Murphy’s signature service is creating accents on interior walls, specifically sharp vertical lines of color. He doesn’t plumb or draw the lines first, and he doesn’t use alignment tools. “I just drag the bead of paint on the brush straight down — it’s an artist thing — and people say they’ve never seen lines so straight.” Those vertical bands emphasize a space’s architecture, Murphy says, and both separate and unify areas within that space. “They allow you to see it in new and exciting ways.”

Picasso Moon Painting is more than a pretty name, says Murphy. “It’s about providing the best-detailed, consistent finishes to make people’s homes both look and feel the way they want them to. I offer something different, something artful.”

For more information, visit picassomoonpainting.com.