The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. All colors can be mixed from these (except flourescent colors but those colors aren’t relevant to my art). Colors mixed with yellow fade the fastest. This means that green becomes blue, gray becomes lavender, orange becomes pink, and brown turns purple.
I first painted this mural at home in 2008 because I had to practice painting large outdoor pictures with acrylic mural paints. If it was awful, I could just paint it out.
It has needed refreshing several times. Here is the most recent version.
The sky got patchy because I smeared on some of the wrong sky color by accident*; the distant trees turned periwinkle blue; all the greens are grayish blueish green.
Let’s go. Sky first, of course. I though I’d only fix the sky and the rest would be fine. I thought wrong.
Jackson was on standby in case I climbed off the ladder to feed him. I didn’t.
Tucker and Pippin were around but not interested.
The colors are truer now. But the sky probably could use a few clouds, those wispy types that were in the mural earlier. Some other time. . . Instead, I repainted the white border, and then the walk-in door frame, and then the windows of the studio. Way leads on to way. . .
Then I pulled weeds. No photos. But you can look at my studio through the flowers.
Maybe March is my favorite month.
Nope. That terrible time change. I thought we voted to stop the madness.
The fourth and final day’s plan was to complete leaves and add birds. So, that’s what I did, very systematically, working from right to left. Yes, that’s backward, but I chose that direction because it involved less couch moving.
After studying real oak trees for awhile, I thought I could be more realistic about the leaves than the previous days brush-tapping style. Nope. Never mind. Fast horse viewing might be a little inconvenient inside a room, but that’s what the leaves will require to be believable.
I had to move the couch to reach the left side. No big deal, because it scooted very easily on the waxed floor of hideous old linoleum squares. (I wonder how long before we view fake wood-look linoleum as hideous.)
After the leaves came the big challenge, which was the gravy on top, or maybe the cherry on top, or maybe just dessert: details, drawn with my paintbrushes, using colors other than greens and browns.
That was so fun that I did it again.
And a third time! Look, I even signed it. Not big, not my normal way. This is my church, not an advertisement for the public.
There’s the whole thing before the furniture got put back in place.
With the furniture back in place, we have an inviting gathering place in a room that used to be kind of institutional and quite junky. (Pay no attention to the institutional table and the upside down table in the center of the rug.)
And try to disregard the 1970s bentwood rocker with the grody-looking upholstery. (This is a church without any money, so everything has been donated, which contributes to the decorating style that is a blend of Shabby Chic and Early Garage.)
Here is a view that is fairly inviting. And that blue jay won’t poop on your head even if you sit on the couch.
I’m wishing I’d saved some of the Before photos from two years ago so you could fully appreciate the long road of decisions, negotiations, and hard work that led to this current situation.
I shoved the couch to the right, covered it with the tarp, and tackled the remaining branches.
I forgot to take photos for a few hours, after shoving the couch back to the far left side. The next goal was to show depth where the new branches overlapped. This keeps the tree from looking like a cardboard cutout or flat paint. I want it to look as if it could lift off the wall (aiming high. . . )
A tree guy stopped by to look at it and give me his opinion (I asked him) —balanced, realistic, believable? After receiving the Gene Castro Seal of Approval, I moved ahead with confidence, tapping on some leaves.
When I was finished (because I was hungry again—could bring lunch, but I don’t want to spend time there not painting!) it looked like this.
One day is all that is necessary to complete the leaves and a few additional details. This has been an easy job in terms of commute (2 miles) and accessibility (indoors, 2 ladders but no extension ladder). Plus, I am at my church*, with lots of people coming and going, a very social and productive place.
As I work on the tree, it feels as if I am making no progress. I finally figured out why: it is because I am painting the same stuff over and over and over. Branch, twig, twig, twig, branch, twig, twig, twig, twig…
It also looks insignificant when seen with the entire wall, so the photos from Wednesday’s painting session are mostly focusing on the tree.
This is my view from the ladder.
I climb down the ladder, stand and stare, decide what needs to be thickened, tapered off, added, filled in. . . Then I climb up the ladder and try to recognize the spots that I decided to fix. Then when I can’t recognize them because it is too close and looks different, I climb back down the ladder to try again to memorize the particular spots, then climb back up the ladder to make the additions and changes, before I see something different to add, which would cause me to lose my place again.
When it got too confusing, I got my darker and lighter browns out so that I could create a bit of bark and a sense of branches overlapping.
After about 5-1/2 hours of this, I was hungry, cold, and confused. Hungry because breakfast was a long time ago, cold because I chose to not use the heater, and confused because it all looks alike. Fret not, I did take a couple of breaks because there were other people working at church on Wednesday. I warmed up in the office, got sidetracked with some sorting and tossing with the secretary, learned some fun things about the pastor, tried some fancy coffee with the janitress. (Woman janitor=janitress?)
I haven’t decided how far to the left to grow the branches, so I put the furniture back in place to see how it all looks together, hoping the answer will present itself on the next day of painting.
Pay no attention to the ladders in the corner or the inverted table on the rug. It’s there to flatten out the folds. When we began discussing how to make the room more inviting, my cohort mentioned that she just got new living room furniture and then I got all excited to grow an indoor tree. Thus, this project was born.
So, more branches and twigs, a decision about the length, more texture, some fuzzy green leaves the way they are looking in reality, outside, right now in Three Rivers, because this will be a one-season tree. I can’t make February last forever in real life, but I can do it on the wall.
P.S. Nope, not painting the underside of the soffit; I am NOT Michelangelo.
The first one was 3 stories high in someone’s living room. This was the first time such an idea was put forth to me, and it opened a new chapter in my muralizing life.
The second one was painted in an empty house as the owners were preparing to turn it into a vacation rental.
My church* hired a new pastor, and things are rockin’ and rollin’ (not literally). Many changes are taking place, for which I am grateful, excited to be part of, and will tell you about the ones that are relevant to this blog.
This room is called the “multipurpose room”. For quite a few years, it was used as a “pilot room”, i.e. “Pile it in there”. When the junk was finally all gone, several of us put our heads together to find a way to make the room feel warm and welcoming, and to truly serve multiple purposes.
Someone brought in comfy furniture for one end, and then I was allowed to go at it with paint.
Lots of climbing up and down to study and decide where to place the next branches and twigs, what to fatten, what to twist a bit more, etc.
When I got to the end of my breakfast (made it until 2:30), it looked like this.
So many decisions. So slow. Here’s what remains: more branches, more twigs, darken/lighten so it creates depth and layering, add texture, add leaves, add a few birds, moss, grasses. . . ?
Good thing it is indoors, because this is a rainy rainy rainy week.
Good sunlit photo but before it was quite finished.
When I was designing the Ivanhoe Library mural, I dug around for photos of a building that is cemented in my memory as a beautiful old structure. (Apparently, I’ve loved old buildings all my life.) I found a photo of the Ivanhoe School auditorium in Laura Spalding’s book Ivanhoe—the Town with Three Names: Klink, Venice Hill, Ivanhoe. I was confused that her book identified it as “Ivanhoe Community Hall”, but I recognized it instantly as the building where I learned to play the clarinet*, gave my campaign speech to be the school president**, checked out books, and played the piano for the jazz band.
When I finished painting it, I added “Ivanhoe School Auditorium” and then thought it would be nice to provide the year it was built along with the year it went away.
Like most things in life, that was easier said than done. The librarian called the History Room at the main library branch, and was told it was built in 1932 and demolished in 1948.
Nope and nope. Architecturally speaking, it is clearly older than 1932, and since I graduated from Ivanhoe in 1973, I KNEW it was standing past 1948.
So, I went to Visalia (had to go anyway to retrieve Momscar with its new starter) and visited the History Room. Library Historian Hunter and I pulled three thick folders from a filing cabinet and started flipping through all sorts of old papers.
Like much in life, the building’s dates are complicated, far too complicated to simply put as “19XX – 19??” on the mural.
Here’s what we learned in two different places, along with Spalding’s book:
It was built around 1926 as a community hall. Then, maybe in 1932, or maybe 1937, “the community, who being unable to meet the indebtedness gladly disposed of it to the school.” One source says it was moved in 1932, another says it was moved in 1937; a third source says it was moved in spring of 1939.
Nowhere have I found the year that the building was demolished. Maybe demolition records aren’t kept, because the demolishers are embarrassed to be part of destroying history, or maybe because it is viewed as a hazard or junk to be gotten rid of, rather than something old and beautiful that has reached the end of its functional life.
So, the painting of the old school auditorium will not have dates, only its title as I recall it: Ivanhoe School Auditorium.
When I was a regular patron of the Ivanhoe library, sometimes we had to go to the main library in Visalia in order to find enough good material to write a term paper or do a report. What is now the children’s library used to be the entire Visalia library, which I found to be stunning and overwhelming. I also thought the building was beautiful, because it is. The architectural style is like the house my dad grew up in, built in 1932. (The house—the library was completed in 1936, so it was clearly the same era.)
P.S. I drew the library in 1989 before the new one got built.
P.P.S. I also stopped by a retail store in Visalia to see a childhood friend from Ivanhoe who told me the school library wasn’t in the bay window but was in a door off the porch. That’s why I added a hint of a door on the otherwise dark and bland front porch. I sure would like to find more photos of the building, both in and out, but those were the days before everyone carried a camera.
The mural looked like this when I arrived in Ivanhoe (photo from the end of the previous painting day—I arrived early enough that the light wasn’t yet on the mural.)
After talking to an old friend who remembered more details than I, I added a hint of a door on the porch of the old auditorium. (Please excuse the poor quality of the After photo!)
Then I added orange blossoms. These are only important if you are up close and inspecting the mural; they are irrelevant if you are riding a fast horse.
Next, I flailed around for a while, trying to figure out where to work next. The idea that I might finish had me a little wound up, wondering if it was possible, wondering how to prioritize. The rooster rose to the top of the list—all those colors!
Here are the feet, before and after.
Next, I sat on the ground, now redwood chips rather than mud, and began the quail.
I stood back, studied the mural while visiting with my cousin on the phone, and decided that the blue sky in the Twin Buttes inset was too blue, too flat, too perfect.
Okay, now let’s look at the whole thing. This was a quick-quick-quick-before-the-tree-shades-it shot.
Some more staring and thinking brought me to the conclusion that despite simplifying the packing label, I needed to not abbreviate Klink to Klink Citrus; the name was Klink Citrus Association. And since I couldn’t figure out how to legibly paint “Tulare County, California” on the wall’s rough surface, I simply added “Ivanhoe.”
Throughout the day, I touched up a few more things, brightening the arms of the wind machine, tightening up the edges of the smudge pots, closing up gaps around some of the insets, putter, putter, tinker, tinker.
Enough, already! I signed it. Even with the guidelines of the bricks, my name went crooked. YOU TRY WRITING YOUR NAME WITH A PAINTBRUSH WHILE LYING ON THE GROUND!
Okay, one more photo before it was completely finished but also before the shadows hit it.
One last look.
I loved working on this mural—the commute, the ease of not working on ladders, the subject matter, the neighborhood, being at the library of my youth, meeting the various people who stopped by, the roosters, the patrolling dogs and yowling cats, all of it.
THANK YOU, IVANHOE!
P.S. An inside mural begins today, Lord willing, etc. . . if I do begin, it will be on the blog on Wednesday. Tomorrow is a little history tidbit about the mural.
Last week I did not work on the mural for reasons that are irrelevant to my public life, as shared here with my tens of readers. The week before last, actually, since I show you on Mondays what I did on Fridays. Never mind.
This is how it looked last; it’s kind of hard to see things accurately in the late afternoon sun and shadow.
When I got to the library on Friday, it looked like this:
Wait, what is missing?? The mulberry trees were pruned, and THE REDWOOD LOG IS GONE, ALONG WITH THE STUMP! Whoops. That was a monument. Sure made nice chips on the ground and So Much Easier to see and work on the mural!!
There is a saying out there that when you have a difficult job facing you, i.e.,“a frog”, you should “eat the frog first”. So, I did: Ladder Man.
After I painted Ladder Man (this was the 2nd or 3rd attempt), Intern correctly and objectively pointed out that he was too small. (Thank goodness for Intern.) So, I kept Ladder Man the same size but moved him farther away in the orchard, conveniently placed behind the Twin Buttes inset so that the wonky ladder wasn’t visible.
Intern worked on orange blossoms for 3+ hours. (Thank goodness for Intern.) Then I dripped some paint on the bright orange on the label, tried to wipe it off, and then Intern turned it into a star, to be fixed later. I hope we remember all the Fix-it-Laters. . .
While Intern worked on the zillions of tiny white dots masquerading as distant orange blossoms, along with gray-ish green dots in the shadows, I tackled the next frog on the menu—painting the old Ivanhoe School Auditorium on that very rough wall surface, minus a T-square and a triangle, which I would be using if I was drawing it in pencil, or perhaps even when painting if the wall had been plastered.
I worked from left to right, across the inset, just as I would do if drawing in pencil. Yes, I was drawing with my paintbrush!
Time to stand back and admire all the progress, with the sunshine and clear treeless and logless view.
Then I decided to label the Auditorium inset, because no one will know what it is unless I tell them.
That was such a success (with space remaining to put in the year it was built and the year it was torn down if I am able to learn that information) that I decided to help people know what Twin Buttes are. That helped fill the too-big real estate of the road.
I sat down in the redwood wood chips which replaced the mud, and began fixing the label. You can see how the daylight changed during that interval to the late afternoon sunshine which casts a golden glow.
Please admire the detailed orange blossoms and navel on the label’s orange:
Further, note the claws on the rooster along with a hint of a shadow. This appeared on the actual label when I held it in the formerly unavailable bright sunshine.
Throughout the process of painting this mural, I continually use the measurement of “best viewed from the back of a fast horse”. After detailing the auditorium, Intern said it was “getting to be slow horse quality.”
I wonder if I’ll be able to finish it next Friday. Prolly not, when I consider how many orange blossoms remain, along with an uncontrollable desire to make the oranges brighter throughout. I also want to add a few more details, because those are the types of things that keep people looking closely.
To top off the great day of painting, there were PEOPLE IN THE LIBRARY!! Is this because the mural is drawing attention to this great free resource in this poor, tiny town of few benefits other than mountain views and the smell of orange blossoms each spring?
Day Eleven was a day of doubt, feeling like a fraud, an imposter, a Jane Bag-of-Donuts masquerading as an artist. This is probably a result of attempting to paint something with an inadequate photo, on a very rough wall, in a space where I couldn’t back up quickly to observe from a distance and then go close to inspect, biting off more than I could chew, overestimating my abilities. . .
It was also a result of being into the finish work stage; Trail Guy reminded me how quickly a building gets framed, and then how long it takes to do all the finish carpentry when building something.
I started to put in Guy On A Ladder. The ladder looked wonky, and then I realized it looks wonky in the photo. The worst moment was when I realized that the oranges surrounding him were as big as his head would be, if his head was visible.
It took a minute to figure out that my photo is quite inadequate; it was fine for drawing the model for the proposal—colored pencils under a magnifying glass. Maybe I need to shrink the oranges around him.
Never mind. I painted him out and concentrated on orange blossoms, of which there are zillions. ZILLIONS. I painted for about 2 hours on these and felt as if I had moved about 6” along the wall and still had empty places.
Never mind. I decided that painting smudge pots would give a greater sense of forward motion, restore a little confidence. (The color is weirdly bright here. . . it’s a photo accident)
Never mind. I need to keep putting those endless blossoms in. (Whose idea was that??)
I wondered if it mattered when someone was standing back at a good distance. Hard to say in the bright light and shadow.
Never mind. It was time to work on something fun and satisfying.
The quality of the light sure changed quickly during that little situation.
This is how it looked at the end of the day. (It probably looks the same to you as it did at the end of Day Ten.)
A muralist friend sent me this picture, which was posted somewhere by the Exeter mural folks, yesterday, the very same day I was doubting my abilities. If I was able to do this 16 years ago, with relatively little experience, certainly I should be able to complete this little mural on the Ivanhoe library!
