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.
