. . . like to know! Cousin Maggie asked me some great questions about mural painting and indicated that others probably are wondering the same things. So, here we go on a mural tutorial!

1. PAINT:  Acrylic paint by a company called Nova Color is the paint preferred, no, REQUIRED by the Exeter Mural Team. It is highly pigmented so that it resists fading, and I have chosen the primary colors with the highest lightfast ratings for my mural. In addition to the primaries, I chose Burnt Umber for use on the sepia toned “postcards”.
2. BRUSHES: Nadi Spencer is very very good at murals and she does the entire thing with a very small cheap brush. Steven Ball is very very good at murals and he said, “Brushes don’t matter”. Say what?? So far I have used a 1-1/2″ brush from the hardware store and a smallish stiff round brush that I might have had since college for most of my murals (all three of them!) I use a few others too, and have to keep reminding myself to choose the largest ones possible in order to keep up the pace.
3. PERSPECTIVE: Because the shapes are projected and traced, the sizes are correct. I paint up close for awhile, then I back up and see if it is right. It usually needs a little tweaking, but not much.
4. WEATHERING: The paints are lightfast but murals do fade, depending on the exposure. Northern ones last the longest, Southern ones fade the fastest. Bummer, mine faces south. When I was on the Mural Team, our consultant advised against coating the murals for several reasons. Now I think there are new materials available, but this is the Mural Team’s part, not mine.  Because the project started in 1996, they have rehired artists to refresh their faded murals.
5. HELP: I can get help for the first layers that just need to be covered in paint. (Someone suggested putting numbers in the spaces like a paint-by-number!) The parts that require detail and my style can only be done by me, as per my contract.
6. SCAFFOLDING: It is heavy, but once I get used to how it works, I can probably move it. And there are very nice strong men working in the building who helped me on Wednesday.