Category: Murals

Mural #2, Day One

It isn’t often that I get to paint 2 murals in the same location. This is one of those rare times. Customer chose his scene, using photographs he took in Tanzania.

indoor mural #2

That’s a herd of cape buffalo. Later he requested a crocodile between the water and the buff.

The logistics are tricky with that bed of rocks, including a boulder.

First steps are the same: tap off the wood, drop a chalk line in the center, get it drawn. Oops, lay out some plastic to protect the floor and the rocks!

Customer has people. Two of his people first placed, then moved the scaffolding to put down the plastic. Nice. While they did that, I mixed paint colors. There wasn’t really anything that needed to be drawn with the sky, so I just dove right in.

Lots of climbing up and down off the scaffolding.

This is the photo I’m working from for the sky. That is the top of Customer’s hat on the bottom left. There is more sky, but I am protecting Customer’s identity and privacy.

Hmmm, needs work, but it is a good start.

Keep painting. Lots of climbing. Stand back, study the shapes, the colors and memorize what to address when you climb back up. Oops, can’t recognize the shapes while on the scaffolding, climb back down and study it again.

At this point, I felt like calling it a day. Alas, it is 22 miles from home, and I am giving myself a tight deadline. Besides, it would be good to not need the scaffolding for Day #2, so I found some internal fortitude and started the tops of the trees and shrubs.

This part will be slower. I was on the scaffolding when Customer showed up. Customer kept telling me to be careful. I kept responding that while I look awkward, I am just fine. We began discussing a few points of the mural, and I climbed down to show him the sketch. I became aware that he was wanting something else on the wall, so together we changed our minds. Bye-bye, green.

He was thinking I might get mad at him. No way! He is a delight to work for, and I want to paint something that he will love. He has expressed his love of the baobab trees over and over, so that’s what will go on the wall. No sketch this time.

Oh. I still have to paint cape buffalo. Oh boy.

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Mural, Finished!?!

From the last painting session photos, I made a list of things that the mural needed in order to be finished. It seemed like another day of painting should do the trick, but I never know. Sometimes the detail and fixing just goes on and on and on. . .

The ivy needed to be lightened, for sure. Better ivy leaf shapes, if the brushes were behaving. Here you can see that it shows up better than on the first layer.

It needed more dogwood, and Customer wanted the dead tree behind the building. I was thinking of another flowering dogwood, but it would make it a girly mural, and Customer is NOT girly. (As he said, “Nah. Too much pink.”)

There were some other fixes, too boring to show you. I thickened the ivy, detailed the grass, fixed the log on the ground, added detail to the fenceposts, trimmed up some trees, among other fiddly stuff. So, here it is, all finished!

Bummer. The bluebird is blurry. He was the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, the gravy, the best saved for last!

I rolled back the plastic to photograph this angle. The reason I wrapped the mural only part-way up has to do with the construction on the back side of the wall. There isn’t a good stopping place above the place where I stopped wrapping.

Sorry. That wasn’t helpful. Never mind. You’ll have to just trust my judgment. (The editor speaking here: Did you know “judgement” is also a correct spelling?)

Same thing from this angle.

There is a second mural to be painted in the same room. Stay tuned . . . it will be a week or so before that appears on the blog.

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Mural, Day Three

Since the sky is finished, I pulled the blue masking tape from the top. Then I reshaped the small window, widened the building a skosh on the right, filled in the posts with a first layer and then Customer came to say “Good Morning”. He had a smart aleck remark about the bluebird, so I offered to let him put some blue on it. He actually recoiled at the request, so I opened up a container of blue, dipped my finger in, and smeared a bit on the bluebird.

Then, I began the dogwood.

The dogwood tree puts out its blossoms before it leafs out, but this looked a bit twee with pink, white and blue together. So, I decided it needed to have some green; let’s call it another tree behind the dogwood.

I also began detailing the grasses at the bottom.

You can see there are grasses on the left and blurs on the right.

See?

When I photograph a painting, whether a mural or an oil painting, things that aren’t just right show up. This photo tells me that the shrub on the left needs another clump in the lower back, and the large tree behind the building needs a little work. And it says, “While you are at it, could I have a few dogwoods in the distance? Oh, and maybe another branch or two on the lower edge of the big dogwood?” Bossy-pants photo.

Customer came back at the magic 5 minutes in the late afternoon when the sun is exactly across the doorway of the old building. Then he suggested ivy growing on the front of the building, which I thought was a grand idea. I began it immediately, and complimented him on the addition. He said, “I’m not just a pretty face, you know”. Except, being from Missouri (which he pronounces “Missourah”), he said “purdy face”. We are really having fun getting acquainted as I paint.

Okay, everyone just calm down from the bossy photo, brilliant sunlight, funny pronunciations, and creeping ivy. This is how it looked when I closed up shop for the day.

The ivy needs more detail, more leaves and some stems. I’ll check out the ivy at home before beginning on Day Four. This photo also shows the grasses before detailing, along with the not-quite-finished log on the ground and very transparent and sketchy bluebird.

Stay tuned. . .

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New Mural, Day Two

The first task of the day was to mix a good color for the weathered building. That greenish tan was just the paint remaining on my palette from Day One.

Often I have a beginning drawing student draw something made of old wood for a first picture because the results are usually pleasing. Painting old wood is just as forgiving and satisfying as drawing it.

This is how it looked when I stopped for a brief lunch break. I went outside and photographed some oranges, so it was a working lunch.

Wow. Tomorrow I will add the dogwood branches in bloom on the left, detail the posts, detail the grasses, detail the downed log, and put the cherry on top – the BLUEBIRD!

Maybe. Maybe it will take 2 more days. My detail brushes wear out so quickly, and then doing the detail accurately becomes a slow and annoying process. It would make sense to keep track of which are the best brushes, and then just know I have to order a pile of them before beginning a new mural. I don’t think there is time to get more before starting mural #2, so I’ll have to baby these along.

Isn’t this an interesting free-standing wall? It was fun to figure out the borders and that I could wrap the design just a little.

Here it is from the other side. (Thanks, Captain Obvious.) The plywood on the floor is so that I don’t bruise my knees while kneeling on the river rocks that are at the base of the wall. Or, so that I don’t bruise my knees as badly.

New Mural!

All murals begin with a conversation. It moves into photos, measurements, and sketches. This conversation began in December at a man’s home in his events room. (No, I’ve never been in an events room at a private home before. . . have you?)

There are 2 walls under discussion. This is wall #1 as it appeared just before a Christmas party.

After some discussion, Customer chose a scene, which I sketched. He changed his mind, and sent me this photo of a place where his grandparents lived in Missouri until he was 5 years old.

P1000685

This was more familiar to me, and quite straightforward. I looked up Missouri and learned that the state tree is a flowering dogwood, cornus florida, and the state bird is the bluebird! (I LOVE bluebirds!) So, I sketched the scene, and Customer was happy.

Ed's mural #3

Two scaffolds were waiting for me, along with some heavy-duty plastic covering the floor and a very handy table.

Don’t you wish you had an events room at your house? I taped off the top wooden trim and dropped a chalk line in the center so I could have a point of reference and a sense of true vertical.

Then I had to move the scaffolds to draw the picture, a very simple scribble.

Starting is slow process. Every mural has its own set of challenges, most of which are logistical rather than artistical. (Sorry – just had to mess with that word to make it match “logistical”.) There is a special level of concern when working inside of someone’s home instead of outdoors. I procrastinated a bit by making corrections in a comforting shade of teal.

Time to put the scaffolds back in place and begin the sky. The photo’s sky was a very soft blue, which I made brighter. The whole photo is sort of dark, so I am aiming for brighter colors on everything.

I took a short break to enjoy the view and was thrilled to see Sawtooth out the windows. This is a very pretty part of Tulare County, and this is the most beautiful time of year.

Break’s over. Just paint. I feel a sense of urgency to finish and get my mess out of the events room so Customer and Mrs. Customer can resume their very interesting and active life!

mural Tulare county

Mineral King Mural Finished

Doesn’t “Mineral King Mural Finished” sound like a newspaper headline? My “client” (what a stuffy word) Mrs. Cowboy called a reporter friend from her local newspaper to ask her if she’d like to write up our project, but the reporter was covering a mule packing class that day.

Because of the heat and time constraints, I went out to paint early in the morning. It is easy to do this when you are staying in the building where the mural is. This location is 2 hours from Three Rivers, so I had to make the most of the time available, which was 2 days.

This is how it looked at 7 a.m. on Day Two after 7 hours of painting on Day One.

I detailed things for an hour, then stopped, knowing I’d get back to it around noon. I was hungry and don’t believe in the myth of the “starving artist”. Mrs. Cowboy has New Hampshire Red chickens and guinea fowl, so there were fresh eggs for breakfast.

Oh my, that tarp was so very necessary.

I coated everything a second time and tried to detail as I went. But, just as a writer cannot proofread his own work, an artist can’t “proofread” her own painting.

Trail Guy and Mrs. Cowboy were on hand to discuss various details of the mural and help me get it to the best it could be. We added textures, messed with shapes, fiddled a bit with colors.

And just for fun, notice how the shadow cast by the tarp has moved throughout the day.

I purposely made the colors brighter than real life. This is because the mural faces East and will fade in the strong morning sun. Morning sun isn’t as damaging as afternoon sun or even as bad as all day winter sun, but it does suck out all the yellows first. This means the greens will turn bluish, and the grays will go to lavender.

After 13-1/2 hours over two days, this was our Mineral King mural. No longer was a fast horse necessary for optimal viewing, although a neighbor did ride up partway through the process.

Wow. Looks like someone successfully photoshopped a Mineral King photograph onto a door.

Nope. I painted that in 13-1/2 hours! (Imagine the sound of an arm breaking from patting oneself on the back. . .)

Why estimate hours when it is thank you gift? Because all murals are practice for me, and if I am getting paid, I need to be able to successfully estimate the time it will take. I’d say that was a mighty fine guess! (an “educated guess”, based on experience)

It needs 3 more things: a title, a hidden item, and a bear. Later. Now I have to go earn some money!

The Cabins of Wilsonia Book Signing, Saturday, April 4, 3-7 p.m., Three Rivers Historical Museum

The First Coat on the Mineral King Mural

This mural is about 6-1/2 feet high and 5-1/2 feet wide. It is a joy to paint a mural that requires no scaffolding or ladders. It speeds things up a bit to be able to simply step back and see how things look.

Please appreciate the shade, supplied by the handy and innovative Trail Guy. I certainly did!

You can see things look a little rough and short on detail. Gotta start somewhere! (In drawing, I call this “drawing the dog before the fleas”.)

I brought along a jar of a teal color, simply because it happens to be the favorite color of both Mrs. Cowboy and me. We were both just thrilled to see it would be very helpful to do the water!

After getting the entire surface covered, I returned to the sky for the second coat. With the heat, it was dry and ready to repaint. Since I had only 2 days to do this mural from start to finish and had estimated 14 hours, there was no knocking off for the day when I simply felt like quitting.

Mrs. Cowboy requested some clouds, so I pulled some out of my memory as I was recoating the sky. I figured we could either refine them together or I could just paint them out entirely.

And thus we conclude the retelling of Day One of painting of a Mineral King mural in 2 days. It’s looking pretty good, especially if you are on the back of a fast horse.

After the Conversations, the Mural Begins

A year passed since Mrs. Cowboy Bert and I decided what to paint on the side of her house. Life (and sad to report, also death) happened, so I just waited until she was ready to proceed. I wasn’t bored, but thanks for your concern.

I showed up around 11 a.m. on a Thursday and was in my terrible painting clothes ready to hit the wall by noon. Trouble is, it was really really bright and sunny, a difficult situation for painting.

This was not a problem, because Trail Guy was with me and all prepared to Okie-rig up some shade. (Apologies to my friends from Oklahoma. . . is there a better expression to describe this?)

I drew it on the canvas (a roll-up door so a forklift can off-load bags of pellets for the stove) as close to the sketch as possible. Before I began painting, I masked the edges, which are some sort of a rubber gasket around the door.

Next, I painted in the sky using a color that I had already mixed for skies.

Does this look like Mineral King and Farewell Gap to you?

I cleaned my brush off on the stream area, because I could tell that it would take 2 coats of paint to cover this door material. It was some sort of baked-on white paint atop metal. Might as well use the color on the brush to begin covering the surface as well as getting as much out of the bristles and ferrule as possible (that is the metal section on a brush that holds the bristles to the handle.)

Maybe this 2 day painting project can be stretched out into a week of blog posts!

Will that make you excited for tomorrow?

Murals Begin With Conversations

This mural was painted as a thank you for my friend Cowboy Bert, who built a handrail for the steps up to my studio.

Last year we began discussing it, and I posted it on the blog in March. However, when my website broke, lots of photos disappeared, so you don’t get a link here to go back and see.

I first looked through Mrs. Cowboy Bert’s photos. We talked a lot. That’s what we do. This time it was about ideas.

Then I did a bit of photoshopping to get the idea ball rolling. Here are a couple of the things we tried:

Screen shot 2015-03-28 at 4.46.27 PM

(I’m not that good at Photoshop. Just be polite, okay?)

Then, we conversed some more. Mrs. Cowboy told me more about her vision, which developed with time and talk. It resulted in this sketch, which she whole-heartedly approved.

mural sketch

Good thing she knows that I can draw and paint, because otherwise, this might have been a bit too sketchy for her. (Ever wonder where the word “sketchy” came from? Now you know!)

That is Farewell Gap which is in Mineral King. Are you surprised??

Done Painting in Church?

Day four of painting in church was a short day. It was time to finish, and I vacillated between “Oh no, how will I get this done?” and “Piece of cake!”

The boulders got shrunk a final time, and 2 more were added as the finisher to the right side. I added some dirt on the right, put some more light on the giant Sequoia, added a corn lily (AKA “skunk cabbage”) and wished I could detail the thing to the point of recognizable wildflowers, maybe a bear in the distance, a few distant boulders, on and on and on.

Get real, Toots.

It was time to sign, which is a mental The End for me. My brush was all splayed and I couldn’t control the line of my writing. . . it was fat and double and sometimes triple.

I painted out the beginning signature and made a plan: sit in church for a month or two of Sundays and take notes, ask people questions, and listen to all suggestions. Take more notes.

Then, return for the finalization and bring a good brush for signing.

The End.