39~ Mural 2012: Last Day of Mural Painting

Saturday, November 17th: It was a great feeling to hit that last day. Actually, it was a mixed blessing, because it felt great working on such a big, complex project, immersing myself in a creative pursuit, and generally just getting to do art ~ big art ~ nearly every day. It's not the same gratification I get from canvas painting or serious drawing, but it's a different kind of satisfaction, and very pleasurable. Brenda had wanted this little overhang of one stair case decorated. I had suggested shingles, but that morning she saw a tile roof on one of our local fast-food restaurants. She liked it, and thought she might be able to paint it herself. I had talked about art consisting of a good bit of observation. She'd started observing things more carefully. She wasn't sure, so I explained how she could do it, what colors she needed to use. I mixed the colors. She had a little trouble with the base coat and feared that her roof just looked like brown stripes. The problem was that she'd gotten off center with her stripes and forgot which part was dark, which light. As a result, it didn't logically follow the pattern that light and shadow on a three-dimensional surface would create. I went back in and over-brushed the error, then softened the transition between the rounded tiles. I had to agree, it wasn't nearly as easy in practice as in theory; between us, we managed to get it done. I retouched the edges of the lettering on the fire-department sign, adding some shadowing to crisp it up (see previous post). On this day, I finished all the cornices and signs. Naturally, there were a handful of finishing touches. That evening, we were tired, tired, tired; but, I knew how close we were to being finished. I wasn't going to let another day go by. On that Saturday, we finally finished the mural. Subtracting the days we didn't paint, and not counting off-site hours of researching and sketching, we'd spent just about one full month of days painting that mural. It was Saturday, November 17, 2012 ~ day 28 ~ and the Calvary Baptist Church basement mural was finished! Hallelujah!


Mural 2012: Saturday, November 17, 2012 (Last Day of Mural Painting: Tile Roof and Signs)