Rocky Hill Mural, Chapter 2

We projected and traced on a Sunday night.

On Monday during the daylight, I went back to see our work, and to determine when the wall is in enough shade for me to paint.

Rocky Hill Antiques mural traced on wall

 

That is barely visible!! No worries, it shows better in person. See the cracks climbing in the bricks? Kathryn, one of the friends who helped me trace, has a song for every subject. She said, “Look – there’s a Stairway To Heaven.”

Rocky Hill Antiques with small amount of shade

This is all the shade there is at 1 p.m. I left to work on something else and give the sun more time to move. When I’ve painted in full sun, I get hot and dizzy. Dizzy is bad on a ladder. The sun makes the paint on my palette and on my brushes dry faster than I can get them on the wall. It’s miserable, both for me and for the mural.

Rocky Hill Antiques in more shade

Okay, 2 p.m. has enough shade. Rocky Hill Antiques is open from 10-5 every single day of the week. This mural will entail a lot of driving if I can only fit in 3 hours of painting a day. So be it.

Rocky Hill Antiques mural in progress

I bought one of those chalked up string things and snapped a line, which I then taped. The blue of the chalk is beautiful! And I love the blue tape on the yellow wall. (Written like a true color junkie. . .)

Rocky Hill Antiques mural in progress

Wow. 1-1/2 hours to do this? And the tape isn’t sticking very well. I hope it is there when I return in 2 days! If not, I hope the chalk line is still visible.

Extra facts:

1. Should have been lifting weights in preparation for this mural – that extension ladder is heavy and unwieldy.

2. Someone named Kimberly stopped by and said, “I hope they get that done soon.” I said, ” ‘They’ is me.” She went all excited and pleased-to-meet-you and oh-wow on me. I said, “Kimberly, I’m no one. Just stop by any time to say hi and see how it is going.”

3. Why do people think that artists are Some One? She was certainly driving a better car than mine! (Maybe it wasn’t paid for. . .)

4. There was a SNAIL attached to the top of the wall. Why???

5. It was windy and a mini tornado went swirling right along the wall.

6. It is very very trafficky along Spruce. This mural will be a noisy situation.

7. Rocky Hill Antiques is a busy store.

8. My elementary school principal was there because he sells antiques. He asked where my talent was back at Ivanhoe Elementary. I told him that Tom Stroben taught me to draw in 6th grade. That pleased him and it pleases me that I don’t think he is scary any more. (Mr. Marusich looks like Mr. Fredrickson in the movie Up.)

Projecting a New Mural

Sunday evening I went down to Exeter with my neighbor and friend, Steve who is one of the owners of Rocky Hill Antiques.

This is a great big wonderful antique store, open 7 days a week, in an old packing house with 40 vendors. Very good place to shop. (This mural could get to be an expensive venture if I don’t focus on painting and stay out of the store!)

This will not be an official Exeter Mural since it is outside of the designated mural district, so we skipped several steps such as painting the maquette, plastering the wall, getting all the appropriate approvals.

My friends Jacquelyn, Kathryn and Louise showed up to learn, help and provide moral support.

First, Steve and I established the borders of the mural, centered on this wall. The Captain Obvious sign about Parking is going to disappear, even though it is not in the way.

Louise is figuring out how to get the projection to be vertical. There is a ton of distortion if the overhead projector isn’t centered on the wall. The plan was to do the left side first, and then the right side, because my transparency was bigger than the projector screen.

JKL were tremendously helpful. I felt a little bit like Tom Sawyer, getting everyone else to do my work. However, I did have to keep replacing worn out magic markers.

The lettering has me a teensy bit worried. I don’t know how professional sign painters get everything so perfectly lined up!

The bugs were going crazy on the projector screen, but we didn’t trace them. It is tricky to not be in your own way while tracing, but we were flexible. I only faked tracing on the back of Louise’s leg – kept the cap on my marker. 😎

Another Mural in the Works?

I might have another mural coming. Possibly possible. Right now it is in the conversation stage. I’ve taken photos, looked through the customer’s photos, and figured out a way to show them how a mural might possibly look.

All my artwork begins with conversations. But, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll be quiet now and let the photos speak. It is possible.

I hope a painting isn’t a disappointment after the brilliance and perfection of seeing photos there!

Sequoia Mural Complete

Doesn’t that sound like a terse newspaper heading?

The Sequoia tree mural of a section of the Parker Group on one of my ridgey garage doors is now completed. Maybe. I signed it, but when I live with a piece of art, little corrections ask to be made. So, is it finished?

I spent 18 hours painting this in about 7 different sessions, the longest of which was 4 hours. Of course, I might keep fiddling with it, so there may be more.

If a customer wanted this exact mural on this exact surface and this exact size and I didn’t have to drive more than 1 mile to paint it (definitely rounding up because I drove no where to paint this), I’d charge $700.

I knew you were dying to ask, but there is this weirdness about art prices. . . the old “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.”

No worries. The truth is what is spoken and written here and no one has any reason for embarrassment when he doesn’t know something. This California artist who paints Sequoia trees just wants to help you.

Tiny Change

When I am painting a mural, every time I look at it I see things to fix, change or improve. When I live by the mural, this can add up to a lot of looking, fixing, changing and improving.

The change I made was that the sunshine behind the big trees was so light that it looked like snow. I changed the color from Brightly Lit Dirt to Less Brightly Lit Dirt. Hmmm, do you think that is a real paint color? It is in my studio, and shouldn’t be confused with the color Trail Dirt, which I ran out of or perhaps used as a base for Medium Redwood.

Can you tell the difference? Not sure I can either, but we’d certainly know if the light was too bright behind the tree. We are all fairly skilled at noticing what is wrong in the midst of lots of rightness. Think about a perfectly vacuumed floor with an orange peel on it. You’d certainly notice the orange peel before the vacuum tracks! So, that too bright paint was sort of like an orange peel.

Never mind. I might be a little low on sleep or something.

You May Slow Your Horse Down Now

For awhile, I’ve been advising you to view my Sequoia mural from the back of a fast horse, preferably at a distance. I’m beginning to think that it might be okay to slow your horse down now, but distance is still an advantage for best viewing.

Getting better with each session. This is the result of 15 hours up and down a ladder. You’d think I’d be quite fit by now. Have another think. . .

The ridges aren’t quite as visible in this photo.

I have a few decisions to make about this project. . . add a human? Will she be the right height? Will the ridges and my inexperience painting humans make her look like a freak? What shall I do in the hard to figure out spaces behind the big trees? How will I put light on the ground behind the trees without it looking as if there is snow? How will I be sure that the traces of snow at the bases of the trees do look like snow? Does there even need to be snow?

That’s sort of overwhelming. I think I’ll just turn away from the mural and see the view behind me.

More Sequoia Mural on a Ridgey Garage Door

This is the current level of the mural. More accurately, this is the current version that I have to share with you. Perhaps you live in my neighborhood and have driven by between the writing and the posting of this post. Then you, my neighbor, will know that the progress is even more progressive. That will be our little secret, okay Neighbors? 😎 And, you will know that the ridges show up much more distinctly in these photos than in person. Still best viewed from the back of a fast horse at a distance.

And the Paint(ing) Goes On

The Sequoia mural on a ridgey garage door continues. Here is what my view looks like while I am painting:

The horizontal blue line is so I can tell where I am. It is the center from top to bottom.

I don’t know exactly what I am doing when I am this close to the wall. That is why I am continually climbing up and down the ladder.

This guy doesn’t know what I am doing either:

The Slow Sequoia Mural

Slowly inching along, climbing up and down the ladder, walking to the end of the driveway and back, studying, scrutinizing, evaluating, analyzing. I have to live with this mural, not just drive past it occasionally, so it needs to be really well done. Besides, it will be advertising for murals during the Studio Tour.

One ladder for climbing, the other for use as a platform for paints. The progress is incremental. Can you see it from photo to photo? I’m looking forward to being able to paint while standing on the ground. It is so much easier to back up and see how things look when no climbing is involved.

Wow, those ridges sure do show up. I don’t think they are quite as noticeable in person as they are in the photos.

Pretty neat-o from a distance, but there sure are lots of murals at this place. Looks sort of billboardy, or maybe a bit overdone, perhaps? Nah. Besides, it is MY house, I’m FIFTY-FOUR YEARS OLD, and I’ll have as many murals as I want. I can quit any time, you know. It’s not like I’m covering EVERY space. Besides, I can always paint them out.

There is still the garage door, which consists of mismatched panels. I told the repair guy that I didn’t care whether or not the panels matched because I planned to paint a mural. That was before Trail Guy suggested a Sequoia mural on the other door.

Never trust an artist with a blank wall.

Paint Slowly

Two of my neighbors have requested that I paint slowly.  They want to enjoy the process of seeing a mural develop.

With this mural of Sequoia trees on a ridgey door, I don’t have a choice. In my head the thing should be going quickly, but reality is much different.

I climb down the ladder and squint and study. It needs more light here, more detail there. I climb the ladder and then can’t figure out where the light and detail were supposed to go. I climb back down and look again. Hmmm, three ridges down, more light. More detail on the top ridge and on the 4th ridge, crossing down onto the 6th ridge. Climb back up the ladder. Add the light, and forget where the detail was needed. Climb back down, oh yeah, that’s right, climb back up, and now my brushes are all dried out. Climb back down and get them cleaned up a bit in water. Climb back up and wonder what I was supposed to do. Realize the color I need is dried on the palette, Climb down the ladder and pour more on. Squint up at the mural and see another area needs attention. Move the ladder, climb up and try to GET SOMETHING PAINTED!!

Please excuse me for shouting. This should not be so hard.

Okay Bob and Katie, I’m a slow painter for sure.  And Katie, thank you for the blog post idea!