A small reference. A whole wall.
The mural problem has always been scale. A design that reads at A4 has to land true across thirty feet of render, and the two ways painters have done it both cost something. Hand-gridding the wall in chalk is accurate but slow. Renting a projector means darkness, a power run, and a flat pale surface a real exterior wall rarely gives you. Grid Maker Pro answers both ends of the job: plan the composition for free in the browser with all 82 overlays, then use the AR app to anchor your reference photo to the actual wall through the phone and trace it at full size by hand. Free grids for the thinking. The paid app for the thing a browser cannot do.
Why scaling up is the hard part of a mural.
The composition can be brilliant and the painting can be confident, but if the proportions wander as the design grows, the whole wall looks wrong from across the street. Getting a small reference onto a large surface accurately is the job nobody outside mural work realises is hard. Here is the honest shape of the two traditional routes, and the third one the AR app adds.
Hand-gridding and the rented projector
Both work. Both ask for something the site rarely gives you.
- Hand-gridding is exact and needs no device, but chalking a thirty-foot wall into cells and copying square by square is hours of ladder work before a single colour goes down.
- A projector is fast, but it wants darkness, mains power, a clean throw distance, and a flat pale surface. Daylight, textured brick, or a wall with no socket nearby all defeat it.
- Neither lets you stand back, look through to the wall, and check the whole design at full size while you draw.
Anchor the reference to the wall itself
The Grid Maker Pro AR app pins your reference photo to the real surface through the phone camera.
- Look through the screen and the image sits locked on the wall at full scale. Move along the scaffold; it stays put.
- It works in daylight, on rough render or brick, with no cable run — the conditions a projector can't take.
- Zoom into one passage without re-aligning the whole projection, then trace what you see by hand straight onto the surface.
- It runs on-device. Your reference photo never leaves the phone — the same privacy promise as the web tool.
Plan free. Trace at scale.
A mural is permanent and large, so the order matters: settle the composition small where mistakes are free, then commit to the surface. The free browser tool owns the first half; the AR app owns the second. Three moves.
Compose in the browser
Drop your reference into the free tool and stack composition overlays. Settle the focal point, the horizon, and the major masses while changes cost nothing.
Free web tool · all 82 grids
Anchor it to the wall
Open the AR app at the wall, point the phone, and pin the reference to the surface. It locks in place at full size — no projector, no chalk grid, no power run.
AR app · paid
Trace it by hand
Draw what you see through the screen straight onto the render. The proportions are already correct at scale, so the ladder time goes into painting, not measuring.
Charcoal · brush · your hand
Free overlays that settle the design.
A mural carries further than a canvas — it is read from across a road, not from arm's length — so the large-scale structure has to be deliberate. These overlays live in the free browser tool. Stack them over your reference, resolve the composition, and only then take it to the wall. Leon Battista Alberti described squaring a design through a gridded veil in 1435;1 the principle behind scaling a small picture up accurately has not changed, only the tools have.
Rule of thirds
The first decision. Seat the focal mass on a third intersection so a wall-sized design reads from a distance.
→Golden ratio
Phi proportion and the spiral for balancing several large masses across a long wall.
→Dynamic symmetry
Root-rectangle diagonals tie a tall or wide mural's elements to the shape of the wall itself.
The AR app does the thing a browser can't.
The web tool plans. The app executes. Built by Sujith Puthran, a working artist of more than fifteen years, the AR app locks a reference photo over your real wall and lets you trace at full scale on-device. The 82 composition grids stay free forever in the browser — the app is the separate, paid product for the surface itself, and it never paywalls the planning.
Grid Maker Pro AR
Anchor any photo to your wall and trace it by hand at full size — no projector, no darkness, no cable. Android on Google Play, with iOS planned. No account to start, and your reference photo never leaves the device. The free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo every month plus all 82 overlays, so you can test it on a real wall before paying.
Free tier 3 AR traces / month + 82 overlays · Paid $29.99/yr · $6.99/mo · $79 lifetime
What muralists reach it for.
The projector died in the first hour of daylight on a textured wall, and I'd lost a morning before. Now I plan the whole composition on my laptop with the thirds overlay, then anchor the reference through the phone and chalk the contour straight onto the render. I can stand back, look through the screen, and see the entire design at full size — a projected slice never gave me that.
We price murals by the day, so the hours we used to spend chalk-gridding a wall were pure cost. Settling the layout in the browser and tracing with AR moved that time into actual painting. The proportions land right the first time because the reference is pinned to the surface, not guessed at from a small print taped to a ladder.
The questions muralists ask.
How do I scale a small reference onto a whole wall without a projector?
Two honest options, and they stack. The slow, century-old one: grid the small reference, chalk the same cell count on the wall scaled to its dimensions, and copy cell by cell. The fast one: the Grid Maker Pro AR app anchors your reference photo to the wall through the phone camera, so when you look through the screen the image sits locked in place at full size and you trace what you see by hand. The grid method needs no device and never drifts; the AR app skips the chalk-gridding entirely. Many muralists plan the composition in the free browser tool first, then trace with the app.
What does AR mural tracing actually do that a projector cannot?
A projector needs darkness, a flat light-coloured surface, a power source, and a clear throw distance — none of which a textured exterior wall in daylight gives you. AR tracing locks the reference to the wall through the phone, so it works in daylight, on rough brick or render, and with no cable run. You move freely, the image stays pinned to the surface, and you can zoom into one section without re-aligning the whole projection. It is on-device, so the reference photo never leaves your phone. The honest comparison of methods is laid out in grid method vs projector vs tracing.
Should I plan the mural composition before I scale it up?
Yes — and that part is free. A mural is too large and too permanent to fix after the fact, so the composition has to be settled small. Use the free browser tool to drop the rule of thirds, golden ratio, or a dynamic-symmetry overlay over your reference and resolve where the focal point, the horizon, and the major masses sit. Only once the small design holds do you scale it to the wall. Composition is planning; AR is execution.
Is the Grid Maker Pro AR app free?
The free web tool with all 82 composition grids is free forever, in any browser, with no signup. The AR app is the separate paid product that locks a reference over your real wall and lets you trace at full scale — the thing a browser cannot do. Its free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo each month plus all 82 overlays. Unlimited AR is $29.99 a year, $6.99 a month, or $79 once for lifetime access. It runs on Android via Google Play, with iOS planned, and starts with no account.
References
- Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting (Della Pittura, 1435). Penguin Classics (1991). ISBN 978-0-14-043331-3. The velo — the gridded veil for squaring a design up accurately.
- Hambidge, Jay. The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry. Yale University Press (1920). Dover reprint, ISBN 0-486-21776-0. Root-rectangle composition keyed to the proportions of the surface.
- Müller-Brockmann, Josef. Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Niggli (1981). ISBN 978-3-7212-0145-1. The grid as a discipline for organising a design across any scale.
- Bouleau, Charles. The Painter’s Secret Geometry. Harcourt, Brace & World (1963). The canonical study of compositional armatures and proportion in painting.
Get a small reference onto a whole wall.
Compose the mural for free in the browser with all 82 overlays, then anchor the reference to the wall with the AR app and trace at full size. No projector, no chalk grid, no upload — your reference stays on your device.