How to Paint a Mural in Your Pool

Swimming pool murals can make a statement, pledge your allegiance or can be simply whimsical.

You (or an artist) can create underwater murals on plastered pools using white pool paint, tinted to any color your wish. Here’s some pool mural ideas:

All-Over Pool Mural Themes

These are different than icons or images (below), which cover small areas of the pool. The All-over pool mural will cover larger areas, up to the entire pool.

Coral Reef: Add tropical fish, large and small coral, and lots of color. This theme is high on the level of difficulty chart, requiring some skills and patience.

Tropical Flowers: Hibiscus and anthurium are popular choices. A flower theme is usually done with large and visible flowers. It can be colorful or subdued.

Deep Blue Hole: This is an all-over gradient, from light blue near the upper walls to a dark blue in the deepest areas. It creates an illusion of depth and is very reflective.

Scatter Splatter: Over a base color, contrasting colors are splattered with brushes or with a scatter sprayer. Light blue over black, or pink and green over white?

Pool Mural Characters

Mermaids: The mermaid is a popular underwater character, along with the Birth of Venus or Poseidon and his trident. Mermaid pool murals have higher levels of difficulty.

Sea Turtles or Dolphins: Painted life size, these are a quick pool mural to paint, swimming across your deep-end wall or the shallow-end floor.

SpongeBob Characters: The whole cast from Bikini Bottom can grace the walls around the shallow end. The floor can be painted to simulate a sand bottom pool.

Nemo Characters: Still very popular, Nemo and Dory and Squirt are colorful, fun images to paint on a pool, with the Nemo sharks hiding on the deep-end wall.

Icons & Emblem Pool Murals:

Brands or Logos: Show off your company spirit! Are you a fanatical football fan? Love Star Wars? Simple logos are a real easy and quick pool mural, even when large.

Product Images: Coke or Pepsi? Ferrari or Lamborghini? If you have ever thought of getting a product tattoo, product pool murals are better and not so permanent!

Pop Art Images: Andy Warhol comes to mind. Street art, rock and roll imagery, cultural images — anything that’s been meaningful to you and your family.

Patriotic Images: State or country flags or images emblematic of a country or region. There are not too complicated usually.

swimming-pool-murals painted by various skilled artists

How to Paint Underwater Swimming Pool Murals

After you have decided on what pool mural you want to paint, order enough white pool paint plus 20 percent to cover the area you wish to paint. Make a sketch on paper, in full color, to help you shop for the proper tints that you will add to the white paint.

For epoxy pool paints, use an oil-based tint, and if you are painting with acrylic pool paints, use the water-based tints. You can find pool paint color tints at any paint store or home store paint department.

You’ll want to use have large and small rollers and some large and small artist brushes. Several of the small painter buckets and mixing sticks for your colors. Your design will dictate the exact type and size of brushes that are best.

Paint the background of the pool mural area with a pool paint primer or a coating of white paint, in the shape of your finished mural. Allow 1-2 hours to dry before beginning to paint your mural. If the mural is very involved, painted over several days, you should sand the base layer surfaces gently before painting each area.

How to Prep the Pool for Painting an Underwater Mural

1. Drain your plaster pool and open hydrostatic relief valves on the floor.

2. Acid wash the pool, then TSP wash it. Rinse thoroughly. Acrylic pool paints can be painted on a wet surface, but epoxy paints need a few days of dry time before painting.

3. Check the weather report before beginning. Avoid high winds and rain.

What Paint is Best for Painting a Pool Mural?

You must use an underwater paint. Any of our pool paints can be used and you will find a range of prices for pool paint. Epoxy pool paints are the most costly but will last the longest underwater (up to 8 years). Acrylic pool paints are easier to work with for pool murals, but they have a shorter life expectancy (only a few seasons). The new low-VOC chlorinated rubbers have been improved and now boast a lifespan of 3 years.

So, if you think you may want your mural for only a few years and then maybe change it, go with the cheaper acrylics or rubber pool paints. But if you want it to last as long as possible, use epoxy pool paint.

We sell our pool paints for pool murals in basic hues, white, black, dark blue and light blue. Use paint tints to create hundreds of colors from these four base colors of pool paint.

What would you paint on the inside of your pool?

8 thoughts on “How to Paint a Mural in Your Pool

  1. marian anderson

    I have a basic white CR pool coating, I want to paint coral and tropical fish in many colors on the “wedding cake” stairs going down into our pool: need all colors, red-green-blue-yellow-orange-violet etc. I know I can mix the secondary colors but I am looking for a supplier who had a good range. I see you carry only blues and greens. Could you please send me the name of any supplier who has these color that can be added to my base white which is solvent based. You photos show various colors, ie red–where did you get them ???Thanks in advance, Marian

    • Hi Marian, what you can do is apply a colorant or tint to the white pool paint, and we also have blue and black paints. Just be sure to use an epoxy tint for epoxy pool paint, and for using acrylic pool paints use a water based – not sure about CR paint actually, but a good local paint store may be willing to help. For bright tropical fish colors, the tinted paint may disappoint you, they are apt to be more muted and less intense than you imagine, and they will also fade over time. You may consider using tile mosaic appliques, which can just be stuck on the surface without plastering around them (as is the usual method)

  2. Andiamo M Frelix

    Do you do sports emblems?

    • Davy Merino

      Hi Andy, we don’t actually ‘do’ any emblems, or provide painted pool murals ~ just talkin’ about it! A local muralist could paint a sports emblem on your pool however…

      • So you don’t do sports emblems, can you suggest who to go to in the area that can use your paint to do a mural?

        I am building a new house w/a new pool. I have the op now to do a painting, mural or what I want is a sports team logo in the pool. Would a sports logo on a certain material that could be glued to the bottom of the pool work?

        • Davy Merino

          Hi Kevin, aside from painting a logo on an existing surface, when building a new pool (or when re-plastering) you also have the option of using tile mosaics, of logos, mermaids, turtles – the list is endless. These are pre-made by many tile and mosaic companies online, such as tilemuralstore.com, poolmosaicstore.com, or custommosaicart.com. They are affixed to the floor or wall, and plastered over. There are also companies that print logos, mermaids, turtles (etc.) onto large vinyl mats that lay on the floor, such as poolmats.net, but as they admit on their home page, last only a few seasons, and colors fade after a few weeks. Tile is the most permanent, followed by 5-7 years for painted mural, and 2-3 yrs for vinyl mats. The good thing about paint is that after 5 years, it can be touched-up, or repainted, removed or even replaced.

  3. […] talked all about planning, prepping and painting pool murals before, but today we look at pool wall mural […]

  4. […] and paint a small design on the floor of your pool in a contrasting color? Davy wrote a post on How to Paint a Pool Mural, with lots of cool ideas on what to paint, […]

Comments are closed.