If you've been following the progress of this project before today, you would have noticed that I made a major change in the mural. Eighty feet of this mural (Squaw Peak and Rock Canyon) received a color change. I've actually been waiting for this time of year when the red maple and scrub oak on the Wasatch mountains all over northern and central Utah look like they are on fire. This year in particular, the reds of autumn are very rich and intense. So rich in fact that it almost seems surreal.
One of the challenges of creating a landscape mural sketch prior to the execution of the mural, is capturing a natural atmospheric quality. Plein air painting helps a lot, but when the sketch is created in the winter or spring and the subject is an autumn scene, it is very difficult to nail the seasonal colors accurately. I'm all about atmospheric color accuracy as much as is possible, especially on a project this size. It's like AIG, "to big to fail". I've been waiting and hoping for the mountain fall colors to come out and planned to take advantage of them as soon as I could, but until this moment, all I could do was make the best judgement I could. Fortunately, it only took about a day and a half to make the change. The rest of the mural is in pretty good shape, except a few minor areas to adjust. This I will have accomplished by Friday if all goes well. After Friday, we will be working on the final phase of the mural and that is the finishing details. We're still shooting for the end of November to have this project done.
This blog will follow the progress of Novatek's longest mural yet. Russell Ricks, of Ricks Fine Art calls this project his "Godzilla Mural Project".