This California artist has completed Phase One of her indoor mural of Giant Sequoias/Redwoods/Big Trees for some exceptional people of fine taste. They have a particular fondness for these trees, and sell fabulous chairs made from some of the fallen ones (from private land – don’t gitchur knickers in a twist!). You can find them on eBay: Redwood Adirondack Chairs.
One more thing about this mural – it comes with a promise to retouch it if a grandchild goes nutso with a crayon or marker!
This week I began painting a mural of Giant Sequoias in the lower story of a house in Three Rivers. As I painted, it occurred to me that there are a number of advantages to indoor murals.
Wow, much more of this and I will begin making excuses for not doing outdoor murals!
In the morning, the wall looked like this:
When I stopped for lunch (a quick snack – takes too long to eat!), it looked like this:
At the end of the day, it looked like this:
Isn’t that amazing??? I am amazed, stunned, and sort of relieved because it is so hot on that wall in the mornings.
This morning when I arrived at the wall, this was facing me:
Looked like a long day of crawling around on the ground. Bye-bye, little Lift friend. No more getting high for me on this job!
Mural painting involves relationships. Thank you, Betsy, for the step-ladder. Thank you, Larry & Dora for the loan of the ladder. Thank you Sylvia for that fantastic Dr Pepper, my first in 2 years, tasted like heaven. This little heart rock is for you:
It’s not perfect, but they never are in nature. Always fun to discover – hope you have fun finding it on this wall!
And thank you to Paula for the visit while I waited for the shade to cover the wall. (Found your home page – it will be a very thorough website when it is completed and just as lovely as your store!)
And thank you to Rocky Hill Ice Cream for being there while I waited for shade.
And this is for Rachelle:
I know, I know, just show us the finished painting!
The end.
First, some observations about mural painting. This is a long one – might want to grab a snack first.
Today it seemed like a good idea to take the lift to the very tippy-top of its capabilities. That’s 19′ in the air. It was fun! Now look at the rooftops, Rocky Hill and the rest:
Look at my shadow DOWN on the roof of the building I am painting!
And here is what got completed today after I finished goofing off with the equipment:
See how well it carries over from the other mural?
2-3 days left, that’s all! To be continued. . .
The beginning, except it was in bright sunlight. (This photo is from yesterday afternoon.)
It was a beautiful day and the mountain view from the lift was just grand!
I saw Rocky Hill over the top of the Mineral King Publishing building,
I looked down on the big Mineral King mural.
This lift goes up 19′. I am much higher than necessary here, but probably not quite at the top.
See how high? The foreground of this photo is the roof of the building on which I am supposed to be painting instead of messing around with the lift.
Okay, the viewing tour is over. LOOK LOOK LOOK how much got finished today!!!
The third tour group of the day was from Australia!!
Remember this mural? It is called Men + Mules + Water = Power and is in downtown Exeter. (Despite its descriptive and clever name, I think of it as Franklin Lake.)
Today I will begin wrapping it around the corner onto the blank wall. Funny how we know what I mean when I say “blank” because it actually has a door, a window, a mailbox, a light fixture, multiple signs and a green stripe.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is sort of an off week. People are off work, school, schedules, diets, and budgets. (Hopefully they aren’t off base or off track too.) I think of it as the Nonweek, when there really aren’t many obligations.
During the Nonweek my expectations of myself are low. Write a few thank you notes, put away the Christmas decorations, get the number off my odometer, pay a few bills. Maybe. Maybe not.
This year I set a higher goal. Murals fade. My very first one, a Mineral King scene, was looking sort of tired, so I repainted it during the Nonweek.
If I had taken a before photo, you’d be shocked at the difference. Oops. Didn’t do that. Sometimes I just do my work without thinking about all the ramifications of possible blog posts.
See? Shabby buildings, fancy murals, and a wreath on the studio door to validate the time of year.
Now the California poppies mural looks faded to me!
Betsy, for keeping me in tomatoes while I worked on the mural. She is a one-woman-campaign aganst artists starving around here!
Jack Elam, who primed the wall for me and never sent me a bill. I don’t even know him, but when I see him, I will give him this picture that I painted for him. Why a flag? Because he describes his painting company as “an American family company”, and that is a clue to me that he would like this little painting titled “Oh Say”!
In addition, I could not have done this mural without the generosity of Bill Sario of Rising Sun, a construction company. He lent that fabulous electric scissor lift and always was available for help and support. Then there was Capella, a Coffee Company. My goodness – they never complained when I hogged a parking spot daily, used their electricity for the lift, their water for cleaning brushes, their building for cooling off, and their place for displaying the model painting of the mural! And Larry Lee Photography was so generous that they gave me a key to their business so I had access to a place anytime the need might arise to go inside. There are more to thank, of course, but these are the standouts in my memory.
It was hot, reallly really hot.
If it hadn’t been my mural, I doubt I would have braved the heat, but these folks were hardier than that!
Mickey gave a thorough history on the Mt. Whitney Power Co. and the dams in Mineral King. I hadn’t settled in yet and was hanging out in the back with my friend from the Three Rivers Post Office, so I had this nice view of the group.
When Mickey passed the mike to me, I asked the crowd if I could photograph them for the blog. I love doing that – it always makes people smile. Besides, who would have the courage to say “NO DON”T DO THAT”?
I told a few things about how the mural idea happened, a few facts about the dam at Franklin Lake, and a few stories about painting the mural. I said a pile of “Thank Yous” to the wonderful folks who helped make this mural happen. We ate some REALLY good food (that tri-tip from Exeter Meats was so tender it was easy to eat with a plastic fork!!). We even square-danced a bit – it was much cooler standing up away from the tables after dark, and Paul Pfeninger is a terrific caller! I got to catch up with lots of friends (including Ron Hughart, famous local author) and made a new friend, Matthew, who is also a painter. Despite the heat, it was a lovely evening!
