In 2008, the library at which I work hired me to paint a mural for the new young adult section. The library’s teen group had already voted for the name The Teen Spot. So using only the name as inspiration, I drew various thumbnail sketches and eventually a design was chosen. Traditionally, a mural would be painted on the wall, but the walls of the library were not conducive to that, so instead the final product was painted on plywood and hung on the wall. Because I knew how involved this project would be, I decided to take photographs of the mural as I worked. This seemed as good a project as any to chronicle the step-by-step process of painting a mural. You can follow that process below, but first, here’s a look at the final piece:
STEP 1: Purchase wood. Home Depot is kind enough to cut each piece of wood once (the pieces were originally 4′x8′). The piece that would become the spot is 4′x4′. The piece for the comic strip is 3′x8′.
STEP 2: Cut out the spot. I’ll admit I had help here. My dad is much more skilled with a jigsaw than I am, so he cut it while I held it as still as possible.
STEP 3: Priming the wood. Priming takes forever, especially doing the edges of the spot.
STEP 4: Painting the spot black. It took two coats, as did pretty much every bit of this mural.
STEP 5: Penciling out the comic strip. Dirty little artist’s secret here: WE TRACE! Because the images had to fit perfectly within the panels, I used a projector to trace my original sketch onto the plywood.
STEP 6: Painting the outlines.
STEP 7: Painting in color and applying dots. This should really be Steps 7, 8, 9 and 10 probably, but I didn’t bring my camera everyday. This is two coats of paint and then I applied the dots on top of that using bubblewrap.
To be continued tomorrow…
Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 28
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