6 ~ Mural 2012: Gesture Drawings of Barns

Gesture Drawing: Barn with Cow and Cat

I came very close to nixing the idea of a barn altogether, but I had promised I'd "think about it." While I was playing with gesture drawings at home, it hit me that I could bring the barn up really close and skip the roof altogether. That would solve the problem of the funny, shallow roof, and also fit the concept of a big barn right next to a newspaper office (the first town building). An open door with stalls and animals inside and a view out into the pastures in back would suit me: it's the kind of spacial interplay I love, and I could have a lot of fun with it ~ epecially the mini-landscape. This plan would solve the problem of the cow being too large, clunky, and "up front" ~ a fault I'd found with the original idea. It also solved a major problem (for me): the air-conditioner vent. Instead of painting it red (yuck!) or just ignoring it (yuck again), I decided to incorporate it into the mural as a stall. I came in Monday or Tuesday and showed Brenda my sketches. She loved the idea of the open barn. I ditched this earlier sketch (below) for a more concise and fun view (above).

Gesture Drawing: Barn Facade with Several Cows

I drew the stalls with the cow and cat, lightly sketching the hills for the mini-landscape that would be visible through the open barn doors. I put Kilz® over a green patch we'd rolled before we settled on the final idea: hence, the greenish cat. The little unpainted calf on a nearby wall had been nagging at me, so I gave him a coat of brown and white spots. He still looked pretty flat, like a paper cut-out of a calf standing on the hill; more on that, later. Tuesday was another full day of painting. While I painted, Brenda taped off the "X" shapes that I had drawn for white cross-beams on the barn doors. Painting the cow before base-coating the background isn't the ideal way to do things ~ but I often get ahead of myself and paint as I think. By nine o'clock, we were both pretty tired and ready to call it a day. This is how we left it:

Barn Mural in the Beginning

1) Spotted Calf        2) Cow and Cat in Barn

Mural: Monday-Tuesday, September 24-25, 2012 (Day 5 and 6 of drawing/painting)