THE GREEN LIGHT TO GO AHEAD!

The approval came by email just a couple of hours after we emailed JPEGs to the client. Next week, we will now go back to the first two murals we finished and give them a clear coat to give an extra layer of protection, give it a little gloss and bring out the color. Meanwhile, while waiting for the materials tobe shipped to our door, we'll get everything organized so we can begin laying out the Godzilla-sized mural project on the interior wall. It will be good to get back to it.

SKETCH IS FINISHED

The sketch is now finished. The next step is to wait for final approval, obtain the deposit funds to purchase materials and begin the project. So far, we've managed to jump through Officially, if all goes well, we should start the mural by around the 15th of July. July 15th is also the day of my 53rd birthday. Perhaps I'm getting too old for all of this gigantic scale mural painting.

I would love to spend the rest of my life on a secluded pacific island, spending my days drinking sweet milk from coconuts, eating tropical fruit and nuts and painting plein air. But of course, this would not be very practical. What would I do if I ran out of paint and canvas? How would I set up a wireless internet connection to order my needed art supplies? And then the months of waiting by the seashore anticipating bottles full of art supplies and one bottle with the bill, to be washed up on the beach. Oh well, I guess living in the Intermountain West is not that bad after all! There is still much I could interpret in paint here. The mountains here in Utah Valley are amazing! In August, I will be attending a plein air workshop near the Heber City, Utah area with Linda Culey-Christiensen for one week. It will be refreshing to get out and paint on location again. I plan to do a little on my own before I attend.

Keep your eye on this blog. It won't be long before I actually start slapping paint on Novatek's Godzilla-sized interior wall. THe mural will be 22 feet high by 200 feet long and the largest single walled mural I've painted yet. Certainly, it will be the biggest mural in the state of Utah! See you soon.

A LITTLE MORE PROGRESS

There are a lot of inches to cover, but we make a little more headway on the sketch nearly each workday. The foreground is now looking better organized and a little more simplified. I have little doubt that I will be painting the mural on the 22 ft. by 200 ft. wall space through the end of the year. This steady mural and painting project makes me almost feel like I actually have a regular job, but doing the kind of work you like is even better! I have been going strong almost non-stop since December of last year and if all goes well, I hope to have the first quarter of next year earning good money doing what I love (an opportunity to sell my fine art to collectors for three months straight, then paint more for my enjoyment the rest of the year. I would like to find a few more good clients like Novatek in a like-minded industry. Perhaps Texas is the place to look for such clientele? One major mural project per year is almost enough to survive on for the remainder the year. I could do this again and again. Someday, I hope to get another Cabela's contract --- now that was a sweet deal! Back  in 2007, I painted five wildlife habitat murals for the East Hartford, Connecticut store and I only had four months to get them all painted and installed. We basically made the deadline, only going over the due date by one week. On the Novatek Project, we're doing okay schedule wise. I hope to get the approval for the sketch and the first check by the end of next week. If not, it will likely happen the following week. I can't wait to get started on it!

SO FAR, SO GOOD!

I took the sketch to the site where the mural will be painted on a 22 ft. by 200 ft. section of the north interior wall at Novatek in Provo, Utah. The sketch looked great in there environment, which will make my job easier to get the approval. Studio lighting can be a great challenge, especially when the lighting situation cannot be ideal. The ideal or standard for a plein air artist when he must paint inside is natural lighting from the north. The studio's north window ideally should be allowing the soft natural light from about 14-16 feet above ground level and at about a 30-45 degree angle. When this is not possible, an artist must adjust his lighting artificially.

My new studio space, with a paid-in-advance lease for six months, has a big south window. My wife went online and found some good information to help me correct the lighting situation. From her advice, I taped sheets of tracing paper over the window. This did a great job of softening the harsh yellow rays of sunlight coming through, but I still had some more work to do before everything was right. I then went to the hardware store and picked up a set of florescent fixtures, with florescent daylight bulbs and some incandescent track lighting (30 watt floods). So far, this seems to work well. Taking the sketch on site passed the test with flying colors.

In a few more days, the sketch should be finished and ready for the final approval. Maybe by this weekend. Keep in touch!