Millington Mural Day 3

Day three I walk in to see my work. I'm always telling my students to put their artwork somewhere so that it will be the first thing they see in the morning. With a fresh perspective on seeing it, any mistakes or things that they want or need to change will "pop out" at them. It's a great way to either pat yourself on the back for a job well done or see immediately what needs more work. As I walked into the room to see this mural I was patting myself on the back. It actually came out way better than I imagined and it got done within my schedule. Meetings could resume in this room without any delays. If you still can't tell how big this piece is by this photo of me standing at the corner, here's Jule photographing the piece with the room tables set up.

All I had left to do was to varnish the mural. I was able to put three coats of acrylic varnish over it on the last day. It took a full day to varnish it but I taught classes as I waited for each coat to dry. I suggested to the manager of the center that they discourage the taping of posters or excessive touching of the piece for a few months, at least. But my best suggestion is that if they or you have a large mural that was expressly created by an artist or that you desire to keep for any extended period of time, an investment in a plexiglass cover would keep your piece beautiful for years to come.

Millington Mural Day 2

Day two began as early as I could get into the building. With google map in hand I painted the major highways into town and blocked in light brown fields. The city buildings on the map are hundreds of little squares. Since this will be the background for the mural, that much detail was not needed. I found that a good square brush and a mixture of white and greys painted in horizontal and vertical strokes created enough definition. After the buildings were put in place I was able to use a mixture of greens to paint fields and sponge larger masses of trees.

After a break I began in the upper right hand corner blocking in the planes. I painted shadows on the planes just as I saw them on my reference photos so there was actually no complicated thinking of which way a cast shadow would go or where the sun light was coming from. I found myself identifying, instead, weird shapes and triangles darks and lights on the planes bodies.

When it came to detailed signage I used painters tape to block off straight edges. Many of the sign areas had to be double coated but with time of the essence I found that I could easily paint two to three coats in between working on sketching or painting other parts instead of just "waiting for paint to dry".

Jane's Perspective is all about the tricks and techniques of painting that create realism without all the hassle. For example, the brick pillars that held the "Welcome to Millington" sign needed shadows on one side. I painted (as you can see from the top of the pillar) one side a darker grey than the other. Then I painted the bricks using a square brush that was the exact width of the bricks I wanted to create AND I painted each brick the same color. Because the "morter" was darker on one side, it makes it look like the bricks were a darker color also.

To sketch everything in place, I used while chalk. If you look carefully you can see the lines of the chalk around the building painted in the lower right hand corner of the mural. Once painted, any excess chalk was simply wiped away with a rag or a slightly dampened paper towel.

About 2:00 in the afternoon, I figured how many more "sites" or signs that I had left to paint, figured how long I could physically work without getting too tired, and divided up the time left so that I could push myself yet take enough breaks so the work would continue to be good. Setting these goals helped because by 6:00 I was ahead of myself, took a supper break, and came back to fine tune the piece. With a three day goal in mind I was able to allow the mural to dry overnight before coming back to varnish it.

A Mural in Three Days - Day 1

I teach painting classes at the Baker Community Center in Millington, Tennessee. At the end of the hall is a room with a large wall mural. As you can tell from this picture, the mural had a lot of damage to it (not the stuff in the lower right hand corner but the pieces of mural that were coming off the wall). The manager at the center asked me if I could do a mural in it's place. "Sure" says I. After getting some photos of the area I make a plan to paint an arial view of Millington on the wall with different outstanding locations and attractions painted in a collage effect over the map. "Good plan" says I and with paint in hand I proceed to paint the background over the present mural only to find that the "mural" is actually just a wall papered photo. As the wet paint touches the paper, the "mural" crinkles and the paper proceeds to come off the wall. There is nothing to do but strip the wallpaper off the entire surface of the wall and then begin my painting. "Easy enough" says I only to find that after one hour, the lower right hand corner is all I've been able to scrape off. In a panic (since I have allowed myself only three days to create this masterpiece) I call one of my art students who lives close by. Jule, the self professed queen of "Get it done now" comes to my rescue with wallpaper remover and within about three or four hours we get the whole thing removed. Here's Jule scraping away at it. She and I are both about the same height so our shortness was a definate issue in the difficulty of the wallpaper removal.

In an attempt to keep as close to my three day schedule as possible, I stay later than I planned at the community center and base coat the wall. This was done with regular house paint and since I didn't have enough of one color I had to mix in a second color at the bottom but I think it did just fine since I knew the whole thing would be covered up later. The graduation of color kind of helped in the creation of a more attractive background, too. It kinda made for a neat abstract or is that just Jane's Perspective?

My plan had been to actually finish the background and the arial map. But considering it took half the day just to get the mural off the wall, I'm satisfied with getting the base coat finished. Plus, I was pretty tired by this time. Painting a mural as big as this one which was 10' X 16' is hard enough. Scraping wallpaper off the area first added to my fatigue. I was looking for a BC powder and a good night's sleep before I began day 2.