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.