In case you are wondering, all the previous days’ blog posts croaked with my website. So, here is the best I can do to recreate the most current day for you.
These orange trees have been “skirted”, which means pruned so nothing touches the ground.
I tried to fix the trees on the mural to appear this way. Tricky business. . .
Intern and I mixed a paint color for the inset of the Ivanhoe Elementary Auditorium.
My mom and her brother helped a little bit.
To work on the auditorium, I would have had to sit in the mud. Instead, I sat on the slimy log to work on the inset of Twin Buttes.
The mural looked like this at the end of day #8.
And thus we end the abbreviated version of Day Eight on the Ivanhoe Library Mural.
Now I’m going to either bang my head on the wall or try to learn to back up all my posts so this doesn’t continue to happen OR I’m going to look for an alternative to BlueHost.
I got to the library at 8:45 to survey the lay of the land. Muddy. Significant log. Big roots to NOT trip over. What’s that weird little box on a pole? Could it be a Little Free Library, right here at the library?
After I unloaded the ladders, I realized that the wall was full of spiderwebs and dust.
When I was almost finished wiping it down, the representative from the Arts Consortium showed up, along with my intern. There was a little bit of paperwork; I gave Intern some jazz about not being able to sign his name in cursive, and Rep had to tell him that his last name initial was needed. (“Kids these days. . . sigh”, thought the old artist.)
Intern was helpful. I was able to teach him a little about starting a mural, using various tools, deciding the order to proceed. He learned about measuring and translating the scale of 1/2” = 1’, along with using a plumb line and a square.
We started with measuring the wall, to be certain that the measurements and proportions matched the approved design. Next, we taped off the insets.
Intern wasn’t dressed for painting, but he was really careful, and we painted the skies.
Intern was a hungry cold boy, so he left for lunch and I began the green base coat.
When he returned after his lunch, we finished the green and I painted some dirt base coat.
What will I do today? I will be on my own, because Intern has end-of-term projects to complete. The library will be open some of the hours that I am working, so I will be able to store my equipment and supplies until Friday. But they don’t open until 10, so I will be starting later on Friday.
The logistics of this job are rather intricate and challenging. I’m not surprised, because it took 3 years from when the county supervisor asked me to paint this mural until I am actually on the job.
