Orange is the Color, Mural-Painting is the Game

 

Slowly inching my way across the eighty-foot span of the wall with the preliminary orange glaze. This glaze basically serves to separate what is dark from what is light on the wall.

Even the first glaze has to be applied with a lot of care and attention to detail. Though each glaze gets continuously more detailed and specific, it is important to nail down the main elements right away. So, you better be a proficient drafts(wo)man from day one in this process. You need to have extremely good drawing skills to work in this technique, as the base glaze has to get it right. That means you have to know how to get the most out of every brush stroke.

A grouping of prominent figures begins to emerge in an interplay with the letters 'Y' and 'O' of the word YOUNG.

Slowly the forms are emerging from their prolonged imprisonment on the drafting table onto the gloriously huge space of the mural. It feels good to see them taking on a life of their own...even if at this point they are only orange (against a golden-flesh colored background).

Even at this early stage you can see the perspective of the design taking shape. The inclusion of the street-scape with the 'Jubilee Parade' for example leads the eye into the design and relates nicely to the gigantic letters of the word "YOUNG".

Now you can see one of my little visual playful bits where the three steers loom large up and behind the buildings of Main Street, Young; creating the effect of udderly HUGE cows. In scale to the buildings, they soar perhaps eighty feet into the air, though in reality they are only about four or five feet high. It's really all a question of relationships to scale that create this illusion.

Even at this early stage in the painting process, it is critical to define the main elements with strong, authoritative brushwork. All of the subsequent glazes...detail that is... must rely on the strength and fidelity of the preliminary 'sketch' to be finally realized.

You can see now that the orange glaze nearly reaches to the end of the eighty-foot expanse and eight foot height of the final chunk of mural.

Some of the elements from the previous 4' x 80' section were deliberately left unfinished awaiting the bottom eight feet, such as the two soldiers representing the WWII vets. The reason for this is to make registration easier in mid-element, rather than reverse-engineering the complete glazing process halfway through a figure.

Getting down to the last few square yards of preliminary glazing/layout.

That was a productive two or three orange-y days. I think after one more good day I will be onto the next glaze, which as you may recall is read. More definition, richer shadows and stronger contrast to come!

Orange you Glad that Phase II is Started?

There's something about starting the day off with a nice cup of orange...glaze...that soothes the soul.

Facing down another -albeit the last- long stretch of 8' x 80' wall. Taking a deep breath, I steel myself for the final slog on this marathon of painting.

As per usual with my technique, I invest in a 'global glaze' where each successive glaze (in the first instance 'Hansa Orange Medium') is applied over the entire surface to basically separate the dark from the light. I consider this and all of the subsequent glazes to be a 'full-spectrum tonal study' that eventually sidles up to the natural color.

One day's painting yields about one-third of the first glaze. If patience is a virtue then this must be a truly virtuous undertaking! 

Enriching with Red

I wanted to know if the kids could stretch out the entire length of the mural for this shot. They did!

 Coffee Row in Young, Saskatchewan is starting to buzz with excitement over the large mural being created inside the local hockey rink. Quite a few local people have been dropping in the past few days with very positive remarks, smiles and reminiscent stories. Seeing as how the end of the school year is fast approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to invite the kids over for a sneak preview and a Q&A presentation. It was thoroughly enjoyable and let me tell you, they asked some very penetrating and insightful ideas. They are such a smart and engaged bunch of youngsters. 

See that step-ladder? It's not miniature, it's seven feet high.

The 'prairie sentinels' rise to once again dominate the skyline like in times past. 

Brant Madland dropped in with his sons and said "That's my Grandpa in the back of the car!". Makes it the boys' Great-grandfather. What a great feeling to be stirring up these palpable memories with this project for Young.

More details popping up every day...

Starting to fill in some of the extraneous detail as I go.

I am looking forward to soldiering past the HUGE detail and getting into more of the textures, shapes and background. See how the turned-up sod has a certain graphic power all of its own?

Poppy and Perry Anderson make their debut appearance nestled in the gigantic 'G' of YOUNG.

World's Largest Free-Standing Mural?

Last night's meeting with the Young Centennial Planning Committee was a big success.


I presented my color mock-up of the 'forever Young' mural and it was very well-received. The transition from the monochrome version to the colorized is really quite remarkable. There's no question, the addition of full color makes a solid design that much more attractive. 

Happy faces all around as we nudge the 'forever Young' mural closer to reality. ( with two of the  local  champions of the project)

Yet again, I find myself pondering the meaning of life as I contemplate the logistics of this project.


The mural will be painted on 4' x 8' panels that are specially designed and prepared for superior exterior durability. The project calls for about fifty-two of these panels so you can  imagine that the sheer volume of material is quite staggering. Put it this way, I will not be handling these panels any more than absolutely necessary. However, they have to be separately primed (all sides and edges), man-handled into their respective position on to the temporary frame that I will be designing and building in the shop where all the excitement will take place. 

Scoping out the wall which will be the backdrop for the free-standing mural.

Then comes the fun part: the painting!


After the entire mural is painted on its temporary mount, it then has to be un-assembled to be permanently installed on its custom-designed free-standing painted steel frame. I believe that this mural will be the largest free-standing mural in Western Canada, if not Canada entirely.


Possibly even the world.

The setting of the mural from across the #2 highway. 

I will have to start researching this claim before I make it.


We're talking about something perhaps two or three times larger than those huge highway billboards. About 1600 square feet, give or take.

Mock-up showing position of free-standing mural in scale with the building. It will face the busy #2 highway.

Have you ever heard of a huge free-standing mural? If you have seen one, heard of one or know of one that competes with the scale of this puppy, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.

If you look carefully you'll see a tiny person standing by the lower right-hand corner of the free-standing mural. This ought to give you a pretty good idea of the scale of the is thing.

I decided to post one more image that I CGI-ed to represent a life-sized human standing beside the free-standing mural in its location at Young. This will give a pretty clear indication of how ...big...this is.