BELOW:As with all my murals, I begin with a loosely handled sketch. In
this instance I used thinned oil paint on paper. At this stage, I'm interested
in getting a feel for the forms, the general composition and color scheme.
In May 2002, I was commissioned to create a mural on an exterior wall adjoining an historic general store in the small town of Adams, Oregon.
"The surface on which the mural was painted is concrete block. The general store is brick. The first consideration, then, was to visually unite the two surfaces. I achieved the needed unity by priming the concrete surface with a burnt sienna hue to imitate the historic brick.
After priming the wall, I used my sketch (above) as a general guide and began to free-hand the images on the wall.
I do quite a bit of running back and forth at this stage, as I step back to view the entire wall following each series of marks I make to indicate where the elements of the picture will be.
I often make compositional changes as I work. That's primarily because things look different when the scale of the sketch is expanded to the size of a wall. I may also add elements; In this mural I added two border collie dogs and a lilac bush. The lilac bush was painted as a wrap-around on the corner of the wall.
ABOVE: The second week of painting. I was able to paint all of this mural either from a ladder or standing on the ground.
ABOVE: The weather was unsettled during the entire process. Sun bright enough to wear sun glasses and cold enough to need a heavy wool sweater and, of course, some rainy days as well.
I capitalized on the texture of the concrete blocks by using a dry brush technique throughout the work; A brush charged with a minimal amount of paint is dragged over the surface to allow underlying colors to show through. The color "spots" optically mix when the work is viewed from a short distance.
