12~ Mural 2012: Bay Windows Well Begun

It was on this fateful day that the bay windows first came into my life. It was all Brenda's fault. No, I take it back. We'll have to go back to the Friday before; because, by the 2nd of October, I'd already gotten well into both bays.

When we first discussed storefronts for the town, they were going to be fairly simple: brightly colored sections of wall, interspersed with little signs. Brenda would have some awnings built and painted to go over the windows, both real and false ones. The windows, if any, would just be simple signs. That's the kind of thing she showed me, in similar murals she'd pulled off the Internet. Most of those were cartoons. They were nice, but very simple: trees, hills, sunshine, bright-colored stores ~ just as she'd described.

Now, I have to own this myself: I did tell her I could go a little fancier on the storefronts, if she wanted me to. One of my specialties is complex, narrative scenes, like little vignettes in paint. Well, I mean... if we were going to do music-store windows, why not put some musical instruments on them, not just words? Why not an ice-cream on the treat-shop window? Some toys in the toy shop? Little did I know what I'd started.

These are the first few sketches of my window ideas: those done before the bay-window concept:

Original Sketches, Before the Bay-Window Plan

When Brenda asked if I could make bay windows, I thought, "Sure, why not?" I didn't think it would be hard. Brenda was thinking of small bay windows. I told her we could go larger ~ I thought it would be easier to paint large toys than tiny, intricate ones. Besides, we had plenty of room, and the area we prepared didn't seem huge. Below are some sketches for a toy-shop's bay window:

Later Sketches: Toys in a Bay Window

All of these sketches were probably done before October 2nd; by then, I was already measuring and sketching bay-window shapes on the wall.

Mural 2012: Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012: Bay Windows Begun