Category: Murals

Not as hot today – phew! The mules turned out well, but the final pronouncement of their worthiness is pending approval by my mule friends, the Weldons. I think they look great from the standpoint of light and dark ( “values” in Artspeak). However, I may have painted their legs too skinny or their ears too short or something else horrible if you truly know mules, as the Weldons do.

 

The lake got its first coat of paint. This lady told me she couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler, so i handed her the paint brush and let her work on the water a bit! It only seemed right, since her name is Mrs. Purdey and that is a brand of paintbrush I like to use.

After my painting session, I had a knitting appointment. (Oh come on! You KNOW you wish you had such pleasant appointments yourself!) When I came back by the mural, it was in full sun and Betsy and I were quite pleased with how it looked. I’m usually gone before it is fully in the sunshine, so this was a great surprise.

When I arrived this morning, there was a section of mural that said “DO ME!” (perhaps I am exaggerating or hallucinating at that early hour). So, that section got completed today. Maybe. It may need more detail, but hard to say at this point.

You can see I am adding little patches of this and that in the lower sections. This is the way I use up the paint on my palette at the end of a painting session!

Had to tape off the borders of the additional “snapshot” area. I can see from this photo that it definitely needs more rocks.

Here is the whole wall. Decided to take this photo when I realized that I hadn’t removed the key from the lift, nor had I plugged it in! I’ll blame it on getting up too early in the a.m. instead of my being distracted. And distracted I was – wow, what a slate of distinguished visitors today! Look at this: my 6th grade teacher, my 21 mile walking partner and her husband, my shorthand teacher from Redwood High, a lady who bought a painting from me a few years ago and her friend, the premier rock mason/artist from Three Rivers, and an entire group of wayward youth from a place called Courage to Change! Those are just the visitors I can remember – this is a very social project!

Today there were lots of rocks and green patches to be painted. Most of the rocks look alike, and despite working from an 8×10 photo, they are teenie-tiny. After needing someone to send out Search and Rescue teams, I finally blocked out the area on the photo and on the wall, and taped the photo above.

 

I was still lost and confused. I drew a simplified “map” of the green patches, taped it below, and (sort of) duplicated the green shapes.

 

Time will tell if I did the right degree of detail in those areas. They may need to be blurred out, or they may need to be cleaned up.

 

 

This is how it looks with the mountain above. I also cleaned out my palette by putting a first coat on other areas that weren’t fiddly like those rocks.

 

 

What a nice day!  The sun hitting me wasn’t a huge problem so I painted until it hit my palette at almost 2:30. Wow, good thing, because today I moved into the fiddly stuff – lots and lots of rocks. See?

There were lots of visitors today and I snuck photos of a few of them.

Monica and Inda found all 12 items in my other mural.

Louise and Katie showed me how folks will appear to be at Franklin Lake when the mural is finished. Hmmm, guess photographers will have to cut folks off at the knees for a realistic effect.

Claudia from Fresno brought Kristianna from Germany!

But Wait! There’s More! Looks like the projection difficulty will be turned into another sepia snapshot! More will be revealed. . .

Today felt like summer, but it was still manageable in the shade which lasts on the wall until 1 p.m. It is quite nice at 6:30 a.m.! The light isn’t good on the mural at that time or I’d photograph it for you all. It is certainly quieter at that time of morning – I had forgotten how noisy a city is! If I’m not paying attention and the noon whistle blows, it could knock me right off that lift. All conversation ceases, and hands get clapped over ears all throughout the alley when that thing goes. Anyway, have a look at today’s work:

I realized that there wasn’t going to be enough space between the bottom of the mountain shadow and the lake, so the mountains got remodeled today. You might not be able to tell the difference, but this is definitely an improvement.

When I start each morning, I don’t always have a clear idea of what needs to be done next. Today’s first task was to scoot the tree to the left to fill the space a little better. (The space  is from my inaccurate projection) Then I drew in the top of the lake and that’s when the proportion problem became apparent to me. Shoot. Oh well, it was an easy fix.

Then, these 2 guys showed up and started talking about skiing in Mineral King and used my old mural to reference various bowls and ridges.

 

When that one guy finally moved his old Toyota pickup, I was able to finish taping off the snapshots and put a base coat in. (Just kidding, Honey! I LOVE your old truck – it has been very good to us with the help of Foreign Auto Works)

The mountains are getting wider? taller? thicker? deeper? Can’t think of the right word here! They are also getting more detailed.

Aren’t these corners great?

 

And have a look at the plaques of the title and the sponsors (fabulous people, each one!):

The mountains are being formed from the top to the bottom (which is the same as from the back to the front) and from left to right.  Notice the wall’s shadow – that is around 1:30 and it is too hot to paint the minute the sun hits that lift (and instantly dries my palette.) Love that handy little electric lift! Today Michael stopped by and showed me a few operating tricks; in addition, the lift owners removed the head-banger and extended the platform. Yea! Michael signed the projection list too:

 

I loaded the most pertinent supplies onto the lift, remembered how to turn it on and drive it, got it into position and couldn’t figure out how to raise it up. I was so desperate that I actually referred to the useless manual. It should have had a simple sentence reading “Move the  yellow toggle switch to the left and use the same control that drives the machine to raise and lower it”. It didn’t say that. I called Keith and he talked me through. When I got as high as I needed to be, I began the sky. It took about 3 hours to cover it and here are the results:

It needs to be a lighter color and the mountains need to be raised. So, I got the new mountain level drawn on:

  

After that, the lift stopped lifting, so I moved to a lower section and began scribbling. Since painting is supposed to happen from back to front, this is out of order and will have to simply serve as a base coat.

 Next, I went home to mix some colors – new sky, 2 shades of mountain and dirt.