Category: Murals

This is how my church looks on a holiday Monday morning.

Does it look to you as if there is room for a mural? It didn’t look that way to me, but I did some sketches for That Amazing Shirley as we developed her idea. We even made changes on Monday morning! Changes? Nah, improvements!

A very helpful man named Don brought in the extension ladder and set it up. Trail Guy made a couple of adjustments, found the can of wall-color paint (there WILL be a need for an “eraser”), and set up the spotlight.

I drew a chalk outline so I could tell the sizes needed when I was up in the air. The top is about 13′ from that part of the stage.

Don was very helpful. He didn’t want me to be there alone on the ladder, so he hung out and told me about his very interesting life. It helped to have a second set of eyes so we could discuss various details about the tree – too anything? leaning?  wide/narrow in the trunk or  spacey/full in the green parts and branches?

Weird weird color at the end of the day with a flash. This is after one day’s work. I may have seriously underestimated the time necessary. It had better be done by Sunday or I will have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do. (Remember Ricky Ricardo – ” ‘splain it to me, Lucy”?)

Mr. Art Patron returned from his vacation to find an indoor mural on his wall at Visalia Granite. He was very pleased, and asked for a few minor adjustments. They were improvements, and I am glad he noticed and asked.

Oh, that troublesome beam. Not knowing how to deal with it, I simply painted the sides a solid color. It shows from the the conference room, and Mr. Art Patron had a good idea.

It wasn’t easy. The only thing about this mural that was easy was maybe, just maybe the sky (in spite of not having a photo). It was also easy to paint in a controlled environment. Mr. Art Patron tells me it wasn’t a true challenge for me because he says I’m an art-chitect and excel at architecture. I feel confident with pencils, a drafting table, T-square, triangle and a big fat magnifying light, but on the wall, I’m a newbie at this type of subject.

Anyway, here is how the mural now appears from the conference room.

Now it looks like a HUGE column instead of a metal beam with brown paint on the side. (“Brown”?? How about “Dark Chocolate” or more accurately, “Burnt Umber”?)

There was also the troublesome piece of metal that secures the beam to the floor.

See it there? Easy solution, but I didn’t think of it when all I could see was the finish line.

 

Just match the floor!

My little camera didn’t do the trick, but Mr. Art Patron’s iPhone had this fantastic panoramic feature, and he was like a human panning machine/tripod thing, and held steady as he panned.

When Mr. Art Patron handed me this subject, I almost choked. I gasped a bit, made a few shocked noises, and wondered if he was overestimating my abilities.

Now, I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT!! (Are artists allowed to like their own work??)

Two days of painting left. Yippee Skippee! I’ll have this finished when Mr. Art Patron returns from his vacation, and he will be happy. I hope he’s happy – that’s the point of all this work.

Lake Kaweah, between Three Rivers and Lemon Cove, California

After a nice drive down the hill, I arrived at Visalia Granite with hope in my heart and a high degree of enthusiasm and optimism. After looking it over, I wondered if I could complete it in one day. . . think, think, think.

Enough thinking. Start painting! Focus, focus, paint, paint, paint.

DONE!!

 

As seen from Mr. Art Patron’s office. Isn’t that flooring perfect with the mural colors?

Let’s get closer.

That pesky pillar looks best when viewed straight on, in particular when viewed from Mr. Art Patron’s chair. 😎

Here is the completed right 6 feet.

That pesky pillar as seen from the side. Not only does it stick out, it slants.

Here is the completed left eleven feet. Nice without that blue masking tape, eh?

If you visit Visalia Granite and Marble Works, this is the view of the mural that you will have from the conference room. Pretty neat, eh? That Art Patron has good taste – I’d recommend his business to anyone needing a headstone or monument.

Welcome home, Ron! I LOVED painting this for you.

This was Pillar Day. Just do it. Figure it out and paint the thing.

Hmmmm, what is wrong with this road and these rocks? Why do they look like a pile of rocks rather than cobblestones?

 

Let’s figure this out. . . procrastinating? Me? Why do you ask? This HAS to be figured out sooner or later. Sooner is better than later, isn’t it?

This doesn’t appear to be any better. Guess I’ll ignore this for awhile and just paint.

Why is it that every single time I do a mural that I have to learn all over again? It must be because there is too much time between murals and then I forget.

The big lesson is to block things in. Fill the giant spaces with color, get the shapes and the color approximate, and then do the detail later.

This isn’t too much to do. I can do this. Not sure about that pillar. Finally I decided to just paint the sides a solid color and deal with the face of it later. (We’ll worry about that later, Scarlett.)

There. blocked in. Sides painted. Ready for the next day’s painting session when perhaps I’ll have a stroke of brilliance about the pillar and the pile of rocks.

Yep, this is going to work. (Keep talking positively to yourself and pretty soon it will be true.)

 

This is how it looks when facing the pillar straight on. Maybe I can blend it into the wall beyond on the left.

This is entry #7, but documents Day #5 of painting.

I had 2 days away – one to teach drawing lessons, a weekly occurrence, and the other to follow an AT&T technician around while he sorted out numerous internet problems. (Terrible company, fantastic service technicians.) This meant I need a little thinking time to plan my next steps after getting reacquainted with the project.

Step One: document how it looks at the beginning of the day:

Hmm, I wonder if I can finish everything south of the pillar today. Feels ambitious, but if one sets a high goal, one might reach it.  (“One” would be me.)

 

Alrighty, then, let’s hit the wall.

First stop to observe. Getting that fiddly background stuff in isn’t too bad. It is fun. I love architectural details, whether in oil paint, mural paint, and most especially in pencil (HEY! SPEAKING OF PENCIL, THE CABINS OF WILSONIA IS NOW ON AMAZON!)

I can do better. As I study the mural from a little ways back, I decide the pillar that will be painted on the metal beam (beam? pillar? post?) will look too wide from Mr. Art Patron’s chair. So, I taped off where it should go, and stretched the buildings and sky to fill the added inch or two. Since I premixed a jar of sky color, this wasn’t difficult to pull together.

Then, I blocked in the rest of this lower right corner with large patches of color so I would know where to paint which textures.

Whoa. Getting too dark to see. I moved all the jars of paint and other stuff out of the way (but left the tarp – wait until we see it with the floor, which is an excellent color with the mural.)

Nice. Now I want to see it through the conference room window.

What a cool view!

I have 3 painting days before Mr. Art Patron returns from his vacation. This challenging indoor mural most likely will not be finished, but it will be close! Nothing like a deadline to keep pushing me ahead. Mr. Art Patron didn’t really expect it to be finished – just expressed the desire. Who can blame him? He has a beautiful office and a great business, and a paint spattered middle-aged woman on a ladder listening to Dave Ramsey or Michael Hyatt on her paint spattered laptop probably isn’t a real draw for business.

Two days off, couldn’t remember where I finished. Good thing I had a list. Gave me peace of mind as I commuted down the hill.

I ignored the list and looked at the wall. Time to paint those all-important pillars. First, tape off the sky to protect it from pillar paint, which is about to take place.

Nah, let’s procrastinate while we allow our courage to build for such a monumentally important part of this challenging indoor mural.

I love detail – it is so satisfying to go from mediocre to good, and from good to great, and from great to “whoa! who did that?” (nope, not telling where I think this work falls into that hierarchy)

I painted about 15 minutes and then realized I couldn’t see any more and it was quitting time. Isn’t it interesting how when work is a struggle, a day can seem like 1000 years versus how 1000 years can feel like a mere day when the work is flowing?

Now that is peculiar. The work from the left side of the mural is reflecting on the right hand door so much that we cannot see what is through the glass.

I knew this was rough but felt very unsure about how to handle it. Lying awake at night didn’t solve anything.

The problem is that if I can’t see if, I can’t paint it. It has to be made up. It is easier to make up stuff when it is familiar stuff.

Having never visited Rome, this is not familiar stuff.

So, I opened some new jars of paint to contemplate the colors.

WOW! These look beautiful and fun to try. After years of nothing but the primary colors, getting jars of premixed colors looks like a party to me.

Okay, I can do this thing. I know it is a mess in the photo. I know it will be hard. Do it anyway.

Looking better.

I painted another 97 hours and then it was afternoon break time. It is good to get some distance, and this is what I saw looking through the conference room window.

And this is how it looked when I left for the day.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. . .