The new mural in the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers History Museum took about 5 hours to paint. It is taking 2 days to tell you about it.

I was zipping right along, just slamming this Mineral King mural of Sawtooth out of my brushes like nobody’s business. (Now that’s a quaint phrase – “nobody’s business”? What does this mean?)

Louise stopped by. She is the Mineral King Guru, an accomplished and published author, and a dear friend who has helped me with several of my murals. I said, “Hey Louise, will you look at this while I hold the window in place so we can be sure that I didn’t cover the peak of Sawtooth with the wooden separator of the window?”

Ahem. Houston, we have a problem.

So, I moved the peak of Sawtooth to the left. Seeing double? Yeppers. Two Sawtooths. Wait. Should that be “Sawteeth”?

No problemo. (a little Spanish lingo for you to balance the French lesson yesterday) Let’s fix the sky, shorten the right side of Sawtooth and add some yellow so the whole world isn’t green, gray and blue. (“Let us” – “us” is the royal we. Thank you for your participation – I appreciation the help and enthusiasm.)

In fact, let’s add a tree. Trees are good. This looks green, but it really is red fir.

Museum Man Tom wedged the window into place so we could be sure of everything. I think you need to see this in person to fully appreciate its coolness. The glass makes some obnoxious reflections in the photograph. The camera’s flash washes out the colors too, but I couldn’t hold still enough without it.

In spite of the difficulties, you can see the peak of Sawtooth, and there is a sense that you are looking out of the window because of the space between the window and the mural.

Now, no plastic and no window. It was a little weird to paint with such sloppy edges, but the window frame will cover the roughness.

The apparent darkness at the top of the sky with that stalactite is the shadow from the roof and rafter tail of the “cabin”. The lighter circle in the sky is a mystery, probably related to the way Museum Man Tom moved lights so I could see what I was painting.

Now have a look at the “cabin”. You’ll have to stay tuned or stop by the museum after the window is put in place and secured. I didn’t dare put it in and risk cracking another pane of glass. (No, I didn’t crack the first pane. For once, I wasn’t the Breaker, although I continue to be a loser in the true sense of the word.)

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