All white areas of the mural are now covered with base coat colors. We started at 7:30 this morning and had what was left of the white areas covered with paint. I'm exhausted. Our goal was to reach this benchmark by Friday by noon. We had the whole wall covered with color by 11:45 a.m. Yay! Last night we painted until about 7:30 p.m. We were able to get about 3/4th of it done last night, painting until the colors we mixed ran out.
We are going to do our utmost to make this mural the best ever, but now, I'm at home getting rest so I can hit it hard next week.
Novatek South Addition Mural
This mural measures 22 feet high by 200 feet long
FINISHED MURAL WITH NEW FAUX MARBLE FLOOR
Here is a section of the mural finished with the new floor.
REFLECTIONS
more floor, less mural
FINISHED FIRST SECTION
The mural is now finished. This is the first section.
FINISHED SECOND SECTION
All the highlights and shadows are now finished on the snow and all over the rest of the mural.
FINAL THIRD SECTION
We tried to capture the twilight time of day. I think we were successful.
FINISHED FOURTH SECTION
Even the tops of the trees indicate the last few moments early evening light.
FINISHED FIFTH SECTION
I like the way the shadow and light plays on the rocky Timpanogos slopes.
FINISHED SIXTH SECTION
Provo Canyon.
FINISHED SEVENTH SECTION
I love the way the shadows and light bring out the rock forms on Cascade Peak.
ELK CLOSE UP
I'm not really a wildlife painter, yet I feel pretty good about how this bull elk turned out.
EIGHTH SECTION
Squaw Peak (the one with the red scrub oak trees on it's slopes) is mosly in shadow, but with a sliver of light at the top.
FINISHED NINTH SECTION
The middle section of Squaw Peak.
SQUAW PEAK
THis looks so real, it's like you can walk right through it! Pick any door.
LAST SECTION
This shows Rock Canyon during the last few moments of evening light.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
STRETCHED MYSELF TODAY
I pushed myself today to cover all the white areas on the wall with color and value. I didn't wrap it up until 7 PM tonight. Before I started painting today, I pre-mixed a color for the granite rocks in the sunlight and one for the shadow areas. On Timpanogos, the dark and light patterns looked real cool and graphic. It is going to be a lot of fun painting this mural.
On Cascade Mountain, we only got half way done painting the shapes before running out of the colors we mixed. I was so dog gone tired by that time, so I cleaned up and went home. Even though I didn't get all the white wall covered, it felt good what we did accomplish.
On Cascade Mountain, we only got half way done painting the shapes before running out of the colors we mixed. I was so dog gone tired by that time, so I cleaned up and went home. Even though I didn't get all the white wall covered, it felt good what we did accomplish.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
HAPPY ACCIDENTS ARE A GOOD THING!
The last time I blogged, I reported about the two man-lifts out of charge so I shifted gears, turned back to using my ladder and thinned my artist oil colors so I could roll the paint on instead of hand brushing it onto the surface. In the past, on a mural of this scale, I would block in a variety of acrylic latex base colors with a roller to cover all the white surface quickly. We were painting directly onto the drywall surface, so I felt okay about using commercial grade industrial paints. With the paint suppliers help, we would try to match their acrylic latex interior industrial paint to match a few main colors from the mural sketch concept. Even though they did pretty good, most of the time I ended up having to paint over 96%+ of it, because the colors were not nailed down exact. I also never got the hang of blending the acrylics to my satisfaction, even with glazing mediums. After covering the white surface with the acrylics, it always felt good to return to good old reliable oils. The other day, when I ended up having to resort to ladders, thinned down artist oil colors and a roller, I decided it worked pretty well to cover the surface faster than with a brush and I can also eyeball mix any oil color from my pallet, nailing it right on. Since I was young, dad trained me to mix colors from the artist pallet. Dad was also a full-time artist and a well known colorist.
One day, during an art class in High school, the teacher gave each student a piece of paper about 3 ft. x 4 ft. with nearly one hundred different color samples mixed from her pallet. Her intention was to teach the students how to learn color mixing and keep them busy for a week trying to mix and match each color. I turned in this assignment by the end of the class the day she handed it out to us. She was surprised that I mixed and matched them all near perfectly and to do it so quickly. It was a challenge for the teacher to find assignments to keep me busy. After I met this challenge, she gave me the assignment to paint a mural of the school mascot (a bobcat) in the High School gymnasium. This was my first mural. At the age of 16, this was a big accomplishment for me. Besides being a gallery artist, my dad had a sign business in Rexburg, Idaho where I grew up. Of course, it was an advantage that I had helped my dad hand paint signs since the age of ten. Scaling up the sketch for the mural was a piece of cake (a good old sign trick). The project was so much fun, I decided then and there that mural painting would be included in my fine art career. Like scaling up a sketch, I still use some tricks I learned in the sign business on my mural work today. I also employ many principles I learned from my fathers annual summer fine art plein air school. I was very blessed to grow up with this background. My father believed in Hard Knox and he provided it for us. In college, I was able to challenge many fine art classes and received the credit without having to take the specific art class. At Ricks College, I was awarded 9 credits toward my Associates Of Art Degree automatically, because of my solid art training at home. Many years later, I attended BYU in Utah to work toward my BFA. The Art Department at BYU awarded me 44 credits based on what I had proven during my professional career as an artist. I still have about 11 credits to finish my BFA, if I ever decide to finish it. In fine art, what matters to art dealers and art collectors is talent and quality, not whether or not you have a degree. College degrees are a left brain thing. Artists are right brain things (or something like that).
Since using the paint roller and nailing the base colors with my artist oil colors worked out so well, I was able to block in most of the foreground colors today. My goal is to cover the entire white surface with color by week's end and it looks like I'm going to make it!
One day, during an art class in High school, the teacher gave each student a piece of paper about 3 ft. x 4 ft. with nearly one hundred different color samples mixed from her pallet. Her intention was to teach the students how to learn color mixing and keep them busy for a week trying to mix and match each color. I turned in this assignment by the end of the class the day she handed it out to us. She was surprised that I mixed and matched them all near perfectly and to do it so quickly. It was a challenge for the teacher to find assignments to keep me busy. After I met this challenge, she gave me the assignment to paint a mural of the school mascot (a bobcat) in the High School gymnasium. This was my first mural. At the age of 16, this was a big accomplishment for me. Besides being a gallery artist, my dad had a sign business in Rexburg, Idaho where I grew up. Of course, it was an advantage that I had helped my dad hand paint signs since the age of ten. Scaling up the sketch for the mural was a piece of cake (a good old sign trick). The project was so much fun, I decided then and there that mural painting would be included in my fine art career. Like scaling up a sketch, I still use some tricks I learned in the sign business on my mural work today. I also employ many principles I learned from my fathers annual summer fine art plein air school. I was very blessed to grow up with this background. My father believed in Hard Knox and he provided it for us. In college, I was able to challenge many fine art classes and received the credit without having to take the specific art class. At Ricks College, I was awarded 9 credits toward my Associates Of Art Degree automatically, because of my solid art training at home. Many years later, I attended BYU in Utah to work toward my BFA. The Art Department at BYU awarded me 44 credits based on what I had proven during my professional career as an artist. I still have about 11 credits to finish my BFA, if I ever decide to finish it. In fine art, what matters to art dealers and art collectors is talent and quality, not whether or not you have a degree. College degrees are a left brain thing. Artists are right brain things (or something like that).
Since using the paint roller and nailing the base colors with my artist oil colors worked out so well, I was able to block in most of the foreground colors today. My goal is to cover the entire white surface with color by week's end and it looks like I'm going to make it!
Monday, August 15, 2011
LOOKING LIKE TIMPANOGOS
Well, were back at it again this week. Last Friday and Saturday, we had a family reunion in Sanpete County, Utah, yet I managed to do a little plein air Saturday afternoon. I also was busy getting a portfolio of my professionally photographed paintings sent off to Celebration Of Fine Art in Scottsdale, AZ. Just got word through Email today that they got it in time before the deadline ended today... Whew! If Celebration accepts my work, I will be busy painting up a storm getting ready to sell my artwork there for three months. Many artists at this annual 3 month juried-in art event make enough off their painting sales to give them income for an entire year! It can also boost their fine art career quickly. I hope I will be selected and should know by about the first week in September.
On the mural project...
One of the man-lifts was fully charged, so I was able to use it all day long! Yay! The other Man-lift, even though I had it plugged in, didn't charge up. Must not have hooked it up properly or didn't turn off some other switch I don't know about yet. We spent the day painting in most of the snow areas on Timp in sunlight and shadow. The shadows on the mountain ended up making a cool positive and negative pattern. Timp is going to look real good before we are finished! Our goal is to have all the white areas on the mural covered with some color. We'll see where we are by the end of the week.
On the mural project...
One of the man-lifts was fully charged, so I was able to use it all day long! Yay! The other Man-lift, even though I had it plugged in, didn't charge up. Must not have hooked it up properly or didn't turn off some other switch I don't know about yet. We spent the day painting in most of the snow areas on Timp in sunlight and shadow. The shadows on the mountain ended up making a cool positive and negative pattern. Timp is going to look real good before we are finished! Our goal is to have all the white areas on the mural covered with some color. We'll see where we are by the end of the week.
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