St. Anthony’s Retreat is a conference grounds here in Three Rivers, a gathering place by many people for many reasons, not just a place for Catholic retreats. I like to go there; it’s close to home, has happy memories, and most of the people who work there are my friends (I don’t know all of them. Yet.) Plus, if I am there around lunchtime, they feed me really good food.
They want to convert a small windowless room to a prayer chapel, and got the idea to have me paint a mural on one of the walls so that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic in that space.
The wall isn’t entirely blank at this time; there is a beautiful oil painting by the talented Father John.
The wall is about 14 feet long and 10-1/2 feet high.
We got the shape and size measured, marked, and taped.
“We”? Yes, my trusty, competent, and willing assistant came along.
I had a little encouragement and companionship while working on the regreening of the Mineral King mural. It wasn’t the normal type, with questions and requests for business cards.
But wait! There’s more!
Winchester closer to me, Cliffie here in the foreground.
Time for a little help from my photos.
Willows on left, done.
You can see how the willows on the right look grayish bluish by contrast.
This might be finished, or maybe after letting it mull for awhile I will see ways to make it better. At least the greens are back to their correct colors now.
One of the most difficult parts of painting a mural for me is that the brushes don’t hold their shape. They get clogged up by paint, the ends splay out, and it is just impossible to draw with them or make edges look clean or accurate or anything at all like I want.
Sigh. Best viewed from the back of a fast horse. . .
The primary colors of red, blue, and yellow plus white are how I mix colors to paint murals. The paints are supposed to be highly pigmented and lightfast, but yellow ALWAYS fades first. Since green is made from blue and yellow, greens turn to grayish blues.
Two years ago I repainted the big Mineral King mural in Exeter because of this problem. When I ordered paints for the job, the paint company said of my yellow choice, “We no longer recommend that yellow for outdoor use.” Well, that certainly explains a lot. So now I am refreshing murals a little at a time, as I am able.
This mural was looking very tired to me. The owners weren’t unhappy with it, but it was hurting my eyes and my pride.
See how faded the greens are? The mural looks sort of okay, because the values (the darks and lights) are intact.
After pouring out the greens, I looked down and saw the green leaf from a Live Oak tree that matched almost perfectly. (That’s what color junkies do.)
The distant mountains, trees and basic landscape stuff can be left in their bluish state because that helps them appear farther away. (I started on some of the trees – that is why they are brighter green.)
Here is a good example of Before and After of the same area.
Tomorrow I’ll show you more of the repainting session. Meanwhile, I have to go scrape dried paint off my knuckles.
I have been commissioned to paint Sawtooth on a saw blade. Hence, saw/saw.
The blade is about 4′ in diameter and is heavy metal. I lifted it onto my round table and then couldn’t figure out whether or not I should lean on the teeth to get the balance off myself and onto the table. The weight made the decision for me – it was too heavy to hold while I decided whether or not the teeth would hurt me.
Round blade on a round table.
This photo was the customer’s preferred view and seems to be the most popular version of Sawtooth I’ve ever painted. I got lucky with my timing on that photo, which is how most of my good reference photos happen. Wait. It isn’t luck; it is Divine Intervention.
Most of the colors were already mixed in my mural paints.
Starting from back to front means sky first, clouds next.
That went fast. Here are the colors I might need for Sawtooth.
Sawtooth’s colors look different all the time, so I don’t have to match the photo, just make it look good.
Oops. The camera was on a weird setting (Poster effect? What means that??) I wondered why things were looking darker on my camera than in real life!
And that’s all you get to see today. Tomorrow is Friday, and Fridays are for Mineral King.
See you on Monday? I’ll show you . . . the rest of the story! (Anyone else around here grow up listening to Paul Harvey?)
Murals at my home, two of which are Mineral King murals. There are actually 6 murals, but two are indoors more than outdoors so they don’t get the sun’s abuse.
I finished the wildflower mural.
It has a ton of wildflowers in a not terribly natural looking manner, but good enough to identify.
It didn’t take very long to finish and the day was too nice to spend indoors, so I tackled the Farewell Gap mural next.
This is very faded.
Green is restored to the 2 main trees and several others, plus a few willows. One tree is wonky looking, perhaps listing a bit to port.
Alrighty, then! I didn’t do a thing to the 2 peaks or distant forests, although their blue might be a bit shocking. I also ignored the buildings, rocks and water. However, I did paint out the bird calling cards in the sky.
Next, the sequoia mural. Maybe.
See the Botmobile? Samson now likes to sleep on the shelf behind the passenger seat. Perhaps he thinks he might get to be a stowaway to Mineral King with us.
The mural on my studio door was only partially repainted, and each time I would think about finishing, the thought would come into my head, “But I don’t feel like it. . .” Summer was too hot to paint; fall came, and I looked at the door and wondered why I just never felt like finishing the mural.
When you don’t feel like doing something, there are 2 choices: 1. Do it anyway or 2. Don’t do it.
But wait! There is a third choice: 3. Do something else.
So, I painted a different scene. It isn’t quite finished yet, but this is how far it got in one short day of actually feeling like painting the door.
This just didn’t ring my bell enough to return to it for final detailing and tightening up.
Starting from the top, which is also the farthest part of the scene, here comes Sawtooth!
Added green, using some of the existing color; now let’s have a trail.
No more tree, lots of green.
On a break for lunch, I gave this young ‘un a talking to about how he (she?) is welcome to the mulberry leaves on the ground but needs to leave the geraniums, hydrangea and other flowering plants ALONE!!
Getting some leaves, hints of trees and grasses. . . I like painting with greens more than painting with browns.
Coming alive! I did 4 oil paintings of this scene, and all sold this summer. It’s a good one! I love wildflowers. Did you know that about me?
There is a reason for this strange coloring. I photographed it at the end of the daylight and then messed with the color on the computer trying to make it show up. There are about four more little things to do.
There is a reason for choosing this scene. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Is the oak tree mural finished?? I think it is, although until the customer sees it (and my oak tree expert says it is believable), the question remains unanswered.
It took about 20 hours to paint. All that time was alone except for the busy nice man from Delta Liquid Gas, a brief hello from a friend and a check-up by the property manager. I listened to Truman, written and read by David McCullough, listened to music (prolly a little dangerous to listen to “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” while on the top of an extension ladder), began listening to an updated audio version of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (and someone else from the 21st century who applied Carnegie’s principles to the digital era) and spent a lot of time staring and thinking. Building a tree to look believable when none of my tree photos are the right shape takes a lot of thought.
Feeling fairly satisfied with the right side, I focused on the left side. I studied various areas, came up with thoughts like “too narrow, too short, too empty”, then climbed the ladder and tried to remember which thought applied to which area.
This shows twigs now added above the register.
The horizontal branch is too short, too narrow and too empty.
After the left side was done, most of the changes were just tiny adjustments, widening a branch here, adding a few more twigs there, touching up the drips, and just generally polishing things.
FINISHED! (Finished??)
Yep, 3 ladders in the Jeep! (Not my Jeep – I try to work for money, not for fun, I want my money when my work is done.) The extension ladder came with the job; the other 3 are mine. A muralist needs ladders (or a scissor lift, or a scaffold, or a big flatbed truck).
On Day Two of the oak tree mural in Three Rivers, I walked to work, because I didn’t have to haul any paint. That is another benefit of working indoors – all supplies are secure overnight.
Yup. Looked the same on Day 2 as it did when I left at the end of Day 1.
On one of my many breaks, I took this photo through the sliding glass doors. You can see Alta Peak (the elephant!) and Moro Rock. The unsightly palm tree will be going away. And now the house across the street is also for sale – will it also become a vacation rental?? Time will tell. . .
I spent the day studying the mural from below, climbing up the ladder and working until I got confused and too hot. Then I’d climb down again, study the mural some more and make a next step branching plan, figure out which ladder needed to be moved next, reload my palette, and climb back up.
The extension ladder needed to go up another notch, which meant it bumps the ceiling each time I move it. Not complainin’, just ‘splainin’.
In spite of the air conditioner working hard all day (and it was only about 99º, not in the triples), it was HOT HOT HOT up at ceiling level.
The stroke of brilliance looks really great in the late afternoon light coming in the window.
At the end of Day Two, this is what I had. I fattened the trunk, fattened lots of branches, and climbed up and down all day.
A Tree Grows in Three Rivers? Hokey, I know, and I can’t even remember what A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was about.
This is a commissioned mural inside of a home 2 doors away from me. It recently sold and will become yet another vacation rental in a town and neighborhood that is jammed full of such units. But that is a topic for another day, and probably another forum.
Working indoors is a pleasure – climate control, flat surface to stand on, consistent lighting, tunes or an audio book on my old laptop (why didn’t Apple include a CD slot in their new laptops?? – I get SO TIRED of “upgrades”, but again, a topic for another forum.)
This is what I found when I unlocked the door on Monday a.m. (a week ago). The carpet will be replaced, so no tarp was necessary. Weird.
This is outside the house and will have a human sized chess board, which I might be painting next.
I procrastinated a bit before beginning. Giant blank walls are intimidating.
I measured the height of the ceiling, because inquiring minds need to know. 14′. I climbed up the extension ladder and dropped a vertical so I could begin building the oak tree around it. It is the same method I use when drawing trees with pencil on paper (not with blue chalk – just a light pencil line).
The extension ladder was a bit cumbersome, so I went home for my own ladders.
After a bit of staring and thinking, I gave myself some more blue chalk guidelines.
A normal way to paint a mural is from the top down, but trees grow in the opposite direction.
There never is the perfect photo of the perfect tree, so I used all my oak tree photos to remind myself of the bark texture and the branching patterns. It is slow, thinky work.
This was a stroke of brilliance!
The raised hearth is helpful in boosting short ladders.
