Refreshing the Mural, Day 4

At the end of Day 3 on the South Fork fire station in Three Rivers, I left thinking “oh, them barren heels.”

Excuse me??

When I was a kid, a couple of Mom’s Alabama cousins stopped by to visit us on their first trip to California. One of them kept saying, “Them barren heels!” Translation: compared to the hills of Alabama, our hills looked bare to her.

On Day 4, I fixed them barren heels.

Let’s have a little review:

2009, when the mural was new.
The yellow faded, leaving everything that used to be green now in varying shades of blue.
Refreshed in 2020, this time using a yellow paint that is more lightfast.

Next, I’ll need to stop by in the afternoon light to take a better photo of the mural.

Thank you for following along as I turned the faded tank mural back into one that makes drivers on South Fork Road smile.

 

Refresh

in 2009 I painted a mural on the water tank at the South Fork fire station. This is Tulare County Station 14 in Three Rivers.

I mixed the colors using red, yellow and blue, plus white. About 2 years ago, the mural company stopped recommending that particular yellow for outdoor use. 

See why?

The yellow faded, turning everything that used to be green into varying shades of blue.
Oops, I think this green is too dark.
This is lighter, but I’ll have to try more areas first to know how things need to be.
Couldn’t resist trying that brilliant spring green. It really emphasizes the fadedness. (I know that isn’t a word, but I can’t think of the right one.)
I just started slapping various greens on in a somewhat random fashion so that I could compare the darknesses.
Now there is more to work with, so I can start making adjustments.
The blue ridge behind the farthest green needs to be a bit darker, but first I’ll finish the greens.

There – see the darker blue now? Colors are supposed to fade as they recede into the distance. That is part of what helps us know what we are seeing.

Now the sun is too high to continue.

When the sun shines directly on a mural, the paint dries too quickly on my palette and in my brushes and I can’t do my best work. So, this shall be continued. The grasses and flowers will take quite a bit of time, and the lake might need another coat. Then I’ll probably start drawing with my paintbrush, making up ridiculously detailed areas because that is the most fun part to me.

 

Finished and Finished

The green looks a bit uneven because it is wet. Those tiny white letters were challenging, nay, CHALLENGING!

The two sided A-frame mural (sign? what is this thing?) needed a few touch-ups.

 

In case you are wondering, yes, I can name all the flowers. They are all foothill flowers, not in my wildflower book Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.

 

Other than getting the quail as close to reality as possible, this side was just lots of scribbling in brownish yellows and yellowish browns. 

Now what am I going to work on??

Unacceptable Ugliness

While walking in my Three Rivers neighborhood one morning, I saw this bit of ugliness and got an idea. The neighbor, who has graciously allowed the water board to put this booster pump on his property, agreed with my idea.

What is this ugly thing in my neighborhood? Entirely unacceptable. However, it is fixable with the help of a very capable neighbor.
The very capable neighbor built and delivered this.

Side one.

It is fun to use all these colors. 

Side two and the final touch-up are ahead.

Refreshing a Sequoia Mural

In 2018 I refreshed a mural in Exeter because the greens had all faded to a blue or bluish gray or even lavender. As I was ordering the paints, the paint company said of the yellow, “We no longer recommend that yellow for outdoor use”.

That explains a lot of fading – the yellow was not lightfast, contrary to its rating. Green is made of blue and yellow, so when the yellow fades, only the blue remains.

My own Sequoia mural at home, painted in 2014, was very faded. It didn’t look awful to the average bear standing at the bottom of our driveway because the values (the darks and lights) were still believable. I like green to actually look green, so it was time to mix new green paints using the truly lightfast new yellow.

When I painted this originally, my neighbor Bob loved to check my progress daily and actually told me to slow down. I miss Bob. One of these ladders used to belong to him. 

I stood on the extension ladder and used Bob’s ladder as a platform while I first touched up the blue sky.

Then I started the greens. Pretty strong difference, eh?

This next photo looks awful, but murals aren’t meant to be viewed this closely. I am showing you so you can see the new green on top against the old green on the bottom.

Just the green and the sky has been refreshed, but it looked so good I decided the trees are fine as is.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 5

Day 5 of painting the mural on the Tulare County Museum in Mooney Grove was actually Day #2 on the Giant Sequoia trees.I thought I might be able to finish it that day.Then I thought I couldn’t.Then I thought maybe I could.Then I didn’t think it would be possible.Got it covered, but it needs better detail, some corrections, the usual adjustments.Nice new awnings over the entry door on the left and the office door on the right.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3B

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.

 

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3A

First, the name of the museum is Tulare County Museum, and it is in Mooney Grove. This is a county park. Just wanted to clarify, because the title of my blog posts about this mural make it sound as if the museum is called the “Mooney Museum”. I just like alliteration.

This is how the mural looked when I arrived on Day #3.

The brighter orange is poppies, the lighter orange is fiddleneck, and the lightest yellow is mustard. (You’re welcome – I know you were wondering.)

There were a few details left to add to finish this one.Better.Best.

There is too much to show you on today’s post, so Day 3B will appear tomorrow.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 2

The mural looked like this in the morning. If you ran past it, it looked finished, but it needed detail.

Those middle hills were a bit confounding, so I just hunkered down in the mud to plant an orange grove. Oh-oh, this is going to be S L O W. Some friends stopped by, and I decided to be like Tom Sawyer. If someone had let me paint on a public wall in a park when I was 8, I would have been paralyzed with doubt, but maybe have just gone for it anyway. I told Justin that it didn’t matter what he did, just make some marks to see what it felt like, and I’d paint over anything that turned out weird.

County Parks Director Neil suggested wildflowers, which OF COURSE I should have thought of myself, and OF COURSE I immediately added in.There are poppies, fiddleneck, and mustard. You might have to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Next, I will finish the details above the grove – a barn, some non-grove-like trees, a couple of wind machines. Then, I’ll move to the panel on the far right.

Stay tuned!

Mural at Mooney Grove

If you grew up around here, you are probably accustomed to hearing about the county park on the south side of Visalia as “Mooney’s Grove”. When I painted a mural to go inside the Tulare County Historical Museum at Mooney Grove about 10 years ago, I learned that I had been saying the name wrong my entire life. 

I began my 4 part mural there this week on this building, listening to yacking Canada geese all day long. (They aren’t as bad as barking dogs in spite of being louder.)

First, the masking tape to protect the borders.

Getting the sky painted quiets the rude Voice of Incompetence and Insecurity in my head.

Next, I located the mountains, following my photos. (Of course I included Alta Peak with the elephant.)

Then, I got confused. Too many photos, too many viewpoints, too many options. So, I took a break to enjoy my surroundings at Mooney Grove, a park set aside for its Valley Oak trees.

The clock chimes every hour. It is pleasant, a nice alternative to the fire whistle in Exeter which almost knocked me off a scaffolding at noon until I learned to climb down and cover my ears at 11:59 each day while painting there.

The hills continued to confound me, so I just started covering things with paint to sort out later. 

Standing back helps me to see what needs to be adjusted.
Eventually I was able to find some hills and figure out the right colors. The wide band of green on the bottom will become an orange grove.

Not bad for one day’s work! So, I went for a walk around the park. When the mural is finished, I’ll show you a collection of photos of this lovely piece of somewhat cultivated nature on the outskirts of Visalia.