This California artist began the oak tree mural by working on the middle level of the scaffolding. There is a method here: build the trunk and largest branches first, get off the scaffolding and evaluate;

build the trunk down to the ground, look again at the middle branches to see if they are appropriately stout for the distance they have to travel, climb back up and add more thickness, accidentally hit the wall with my wet paintbrush and turn it into another branch, and up and down on the scaffolding.

Eventually decide it is too hard to figure out what to do, stop for lunch. Realize after lunch that maybe working on ground level looks the most inviting.

Paint until you do something stupid (oops, wrong angle on roof of barn, oops, dropped the mixing stick with wet white paint on the tile floor), take some photos and go home to blog.