Painting the Beast: 'forever YOUNG' mural fired up!

Mock-up shows the scale of the finished mural-to-be.

Applying the first few strokes of rich orange glaze.

After an intense week of construction, I was in a position to get started on what I love best: mural-painting. As usual, I have primed the strata a warm golden-flesh tone to begin. I work in the old European technique of laying down perhaps 12-15 transparent to translucent layers in a full-spectrum tonal study before applying the 'native' colors. My first step is to differentiate between light and dark by applying a warm orange glaze to 'everything dark or shaded'.

I don't mess around once I start painting. There's a LOOONG way to go!

Feeling good to be underway after all the prep work. Delayed gratification ain't all it's made out to be.

Starting off at the upper left-hand corner.

There will ultimately be dozens of passes on the rolling scaffold as the transparent glazes are systematically laid in. I will be applying 'global' glazes, meaning ALL of each glaze will be completed before moving on to the next color. So yeah, the sky will remain orange for quite some time! This is not a process that can be rushed.

When I paint a mural on this scale, I like to stay organized, working methodically from the upper left-hand corner and across the expanse of the wall to the right.

When working on a mural of this scale, I have to stay organized with a long-term plan of attack. There is not a whole lot of random painting that goes on, especially when laying in the foundation of the piece. This may surprise you (or not) but I apply precisely the same methodology to a piece on this scale as I would with an easel painting. I won't go into detail here, you will see as the days and weeks go by how it systematically evolves.

Day 1 of painting yields a good result.

Before I move on to the second glaze, all of the rich orange will be applied to begin the laborious process of separating light from dark. 

Speeding up the Prep...Delayed Gratification is Over-Rated.

We were really happy to build the scaffolding and press it into service on plank rails in front of the wall.

Every ambitious community project needs a local champion. Lil Sather is exactly that. Lil has been a vocal proponent of this world-scale project out of small town Saskatchewan for over two years. It was Lil Sather who made the initial contact with me before the Village of Young Centennial in 2010.

Sherwin powered the panels up the wall with a lift assist from me to balance the bottom on the lip of the bottom row, then we would co-ordinate pinning the panel in place with a minimum number of screws.

Sherwin affixing panels at ground level in a systematic manner to maximize results while minimizing handling of the heavy pieces.

Aerial view of the scaffold set up on the left-hand side of the first 3/5ths of surface. What you see is the eighty-foot by sixteen-foot upper portion of the mural per se. There will be an additional eight feet of height beneath for a total of eighty feet by twenty feet.

The Zimboni which was earlier rolled out of its usual storage shop makes a convenient book-end to prop up panels against for easy later access at stage right.

A good afternoon's painting...application of the signature golden flesh-toned primer. Peace out till next time...there WILL be mural-painting soon now that this phase of prep is finished. 

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.