Getting It Up...The "forever YOUNG" Mural Installation

After patiently waiting for over 5 years for the Young Centennial Mural Committee to get their ducks in a row, I am excited to announce...that the gigantic
(20' high x 80' in length) mural "forever YOUNG" has been installed in the past two days.

We brought in the "big guns" aka equipment to do the job...

 This is a huge project in every way. Not only was the painting a big undertaking, obviously, but also the gigantic frame and now, the installation. As you can see, the mural panels were lifted up 10 feet in the air and then soar an additional 20 feet up on the awaiting frame. The mural is 80 running feet in length!

My methodology is to paint a series of 4' x 8' panels...of an exterior-grade material with professional-quality artists' acrylics. This is all considerably costly, but it ensures incredible longevity. 

The men on the scissor lift reinforce the massive scale of the mural. As you can see, they are a bit "dwarfed" by the panels.

Just about ready to lift another panel into position!

Altogether there are 50 (4'x8') panels that need to be lifted up and positioned on the massive frame. As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts here, literally. All of the men needed to be available at one time...in the middle of a very busy farming season!...plus the equipment needed to be lined up, all to correspond with perfect weather. This is not a job that could be undertaken in high winds and certainly not rain. Luckily and happily, all of these favorable incidents lined up for this ambitious project to come to fruition!

Stay posted, I will continue to chronicle this project in this space over the coming weeks.

About the artist:              

To read more, please visit www.mrgaudet.com

Purple Glaze all in my brain...

Advancing with iron-willed determination with the remaining few square meters of red glaze...already anticipating the rush of 'purple glaze'...

There. That should just about do the trick for the application of the translucent red glaze. Time to crack open my ( probably ) most favorite glaze...purple! Or, more accurately, dioxazine violet if you want to be exact.

Can you spot the encroachment of violet?

Everything really pops with the addition of a translucent violet glaze. Suddenly the shadows start to make themselves known and the earthiness of these first three glazes with all of their infinite intermingling becomes apparent.

You can see the steam engine grows bolder and more powerful looking with the addition of violet. Maybe I am getting just a bit ahead of myself but I thought I would have a little fun with some steely blues to create the beginning of an impression of reflective iron on the front of this huge machine. Rules? What rules? It still has to be fun!

The composition of the first several objects starts taking shape with the gradient blue bits adding incredible depth and perspective.

There's something about atmospheric blue that intrinsically suggests depth and atmosphere. I think our brains via our eyes are hard-wired to accept this color as meaning "far far away", especially when it is a graduated tone from quite light on the bottom to rich as it ascends into space.

The cluster of figures just to the right of the train begin to dramatically come into their own once the violet glaze is applied. This glaze interacting with the previous red and orange glazes set on a base of golden flesh color begins to set up a dynamic surface tension that starts to convince the eye that the various shadows, highlights and contrasting shapes are surprisingly life-like.

Progressing to the right with the violet glaze forces the images to stand out in vivid contrast to their so-called 'negative space'.

I usually start my day with a certain goal in mind. This picture was taken yesterday...the goal was to to tease out the horse and buggy from the background and also to tidy up a variety of smaller details. Mission accomplished!

You can see the steady advancement of the violet glaze popping features out of the golden-flesh field.

One final parting shot from up on the sixteen foot step ladder...we have been here before! I think one more day will suffice to finish the purple glaze. Then it's on to...pthalo blue. Just wait, you will see the shadows and contrast pretty much leap off the page with the blue. But you already know that if you have been following.

One added pleasure for me while working away on the mural is when visitors pop in to check out my progress and (in general) cheer me on...as this is truly a marathon of painting. I try not to think too much about the formidable scale of this piece and just stick to the program...paint, paint, paint. Rest, drink, snack, paint, paint, paint.

Red Red Red and then more Red

While it is a somewhat slow and meticulous process, the 'red glaze' steadily blooms across the eighty foot span of panels. You can just see the man's torso emerging inside the letter 'O'.

The scaffold is rolling, rolling, rolling across the wall as the red glaze is methodically applied. There is really no rushing this process...each glaze must be patiently added in a certain order to achieve the full-spectrum tonal treatment that will ultimately lead to the final glazes of 'local' color which will cinch the process.

The red glaze defines the character and depth of this group of figures quite dramatically, coaxing them out of the long slow simmer of their ethereal existence trapped within the confines of the mock-up for the past two years. I am enjoying the daily progress of realization that is bringing them and the rest of this sprawling menagerie of characters and events to life.

Not showing any signs of slowing down yet as you can see by the blurry right hand wielding the magic brush

Goofing around with my friend the formidable Miss Lizzy G at the far right-hand side of the first ( ie: upper) set of panels which now form a semi-circle at their temporary resting place in the curved corner of the hockey rink at Young, SK., which is serving as my summer studio.

Working on the beginning of the 'Jubilee Street Parade' which will eventually feature quite prominently in the lower center of the composition. I like this scene because the vintage cars parked along Main Street Young create a strong time-based impression of years gone by. This adds to the overall theme of historic Young and also presents a dramatic, plunging depth of perspective that accentuates the three-dimensional illusion of the design.

Betty, Lizzy G and Marnie pose alongside the almost life-size team of oxen. We were laughing about the fact that once the mural is up on its permanent mount outside, these beasts will be soaring about twenty feet up in the air. So it will be a bit more difficult to get up close and personal at that point.

Ready to Rock the Red

With each successive glaze, the contrast grows stronger but just as important so does the resolution. And the red glaze is no exception...in fact it is one of the most powerful defining moments in the evolution of the mural.

The images are no longer merely amorphous...rather, at this stage the strength and character of the brushstrokes becomes abundantly obvious. It's a 'do or die' situation when it comes to the red.

The previous glaze (orange) needed to be applied super carefully, because the only guide was the 'plot point' sketch created with pencils. It was time-consuming to the utmost, due to the fact that it felt like a high wire act without a net, as the very sketchy guide lines do not help a whole lot in shoring up confidence. At that point I was heavily reliant on the dossier of source photos for reference. But now that the base glaze of orange is successfully applied, I am more free to fly with my brushes dipped in the powerful cadmium red medium.

As was the case with the orange glaze (as I pointed out in my previous post) it is paramount to make every brush stroke count, as these early glazes set the mood and template for all of the future glazes that will ultimately land us at the finished product. If you look carefully you will see that there is a lot of character and personality in the brushwork that defines the details and textures of the railway station. Even at this early stage.

I like the way that the railway station nicely anchors the lower left-hand side of the composition while forming a solid gravity that stitches it to the other buildings that sit at about 2:00 directly above and to the right. As I am just seeing it for the first time in the mural, I appreciate now that my design instincts were right on the mark with the scale and composition in this case.

You can see that the massive steam engine is rapidly coming into resolution with the addition of the red glaze. Although it will be a few days yet, I can already imagine how imposing it will appear with the following glazes: violet, pthalo blue, etc. Can you spot the two figures just beginning to emerge? They are there to establish the scale of the steam engine, incidentally the very first to pull into the rail-yards at Young back in the mid 19-teens.

What you are seeing is the result of almost a full day's patient glazing as I work methodically from left to right in two passes of about 4-5 feet swaths. If all goes well, I oughta be able to finish this stage in two or three more long days and then it's on to what is maybe my favorite glaze...violet. So stay tuned!

Ready for RED! (But not till next post)

Just about finished the orange glaze...only a few more vacancies to fill with the breaking detail.

A distant shot shows the organic growth of the orange glaze across the wall. I love my magic mural-painting brushes that do all the work. I just hang on for the ride as the brushes do their thing.

For this photo, I climbed up to the top of a ten-foot ladder. I figured that would give us a more square-on impression of the work-in-progress. From the side that is.

I backed way up about fifty feet for this shot. You can see now that the orange glaze pretty much uniformly inhabits the golden flesh-colored field. There is a nice interplay between the positive (orange) and negative ( golden) space. Or is that the reverse?

The cluster of images that finally anchor the extreme lower right-hand side of the design have been carefully balanced and counter-balanced to act as a landing spot for the eyes after they have perused the entirety of the composition.