After I finished the mural on the left side panel, I moved over to the right side panel to begin painting redwood trees, AKA sequoia gigantea, AKA Big Trees.
After looking through a small stack of pretty good photos of redwoods in sunlight, I chose one. Then I looked down at my scattering of business cards and got a laugh.
Clearly, I like this particular view.
For once in my muralizing life, I wasn’t paralyzed by indecision. This felt easy to begin.
There is no pattern to how I move around this wall – just a little here, a little there, maybe I can do this, if I do that it might help me see the proportions more correctly, up the ladder, down the ladder, step back, try this color. No matter what part I work on, the wall is getting covered.
I decided to put in sky colored background to define the edges of the trees, (including some smaller trees).
Then I decided to get a bit more systematic, and work left to right.
Then I didn’t want to work from the ladder any more, so I hunkered down in the mud to work on the bases of the trees.
Not bad for a day’s work, eh? What makes this so pleasant and makes all this roaming around the wall in a random method possible is the fact that the wall is north-facing, and I never have to worry about protecting my palette or brush from the direct sun.
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