Painting a Mural: Step-by-Step (Part 2)

This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post which you can read here.

STEP 8: More black outlines. Just went back over the black outlines here. Not all that exciting, but it does start to really pull the piece together.

STEP 9: Painted the shadow on the girl’s hands as well as the text in the word balloon. Used bubblewrap on the spine of the book.

STEP 10: Text on spot. This font is actually called “Damn Noisy Kids,” I don’t think that could be more appropriate.

STEP 11: Painted in the blue books.

STEP 12: Finished black outlines. Also went over white border.

STEP 13: Painted black borders, added black splatter around spot, did various touch-ups, and signed it.

And again, the mural hanging in the library:

For comparison’s sake, here’s the final sketch I pitched to the library director before she signed off on this design:

EASTER EGGS:

A co-worker suggested I included a secret message or word in the mural, like a DVD easter egg. And at first I thought, “that’s a dumb idea.” And then I was like, “Waitaminute, this is a chance for me to show what a huge Joss Whedon nut I am.” So if you look at the spines of the books on the shelves going from left to right across the mural, there’s a B-U-F-F-Y. A nod to the greatest TV show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yes I am a huge geek.

I included one other easter egg. The face of the disability monkey, the unofficial mascot of the Trumbull Library. This may take some time to explain. When I first started at the library, I would often do the schedule on the white boards (especially in children’s) and then draw a picture to go with it. One week I drew a monkey with sunglasses taking a walk and a co-worker said to me, “Why is that monkey blind?” I protested, “He’s not blind, he’s just wearing sunglasses.” And she returned, “No he’s blind.” She then named him “The Disability Monkey.” I used him on more than one occasion after that. The two I included here were for our mini-golf tournament that we held in the library to benefit a library demolished by Hurricane Katrina, and then, the best one ever, the day we were showing “The Miracle Worker: The Helen Keller Story.” That could never be topped, so he was pretty much retired after that point.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 29

Painting a Mural: Step-by-Step (Part 1)

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

Murals

Sometimes I get too attached to my own work, and I’m incredibly hesitant to sell it. So, given I can’t tear down the wall and take it home with me, painting murals is an ideal outlet for me when I actually want to make money from selling my artwork. These are some of the murals I’ve done over the years.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 18

New Banner & Blog-A-Day Challenge Week One Done!

I’ve been meaning to change the banner on this blog from a while. When I was in high school, I would write these comic books where I would cast myself, my friends, and various other kids from school as superheroes. Since I was an artist, I decided my superhero power should be art related and because I thought Wolverine was so very awesome, I decided I would have claws like Logan but mine would be pencils. Which practically doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (remember I was 15 or 16 when I came up with this genius idea), I imagine my claws would be snapping off early and often unless I was using adamantium-laced graphite or something. Although Willow did once stake a vampire with a floating pencil, so if I was slaying vampires perhaps it would’ve worked.

The uncropped, unedited painting. Acrylic paint and ink.

So while the idea of a superhero with pencils for claws is incredibly cheesy and stupid, the hand with the pencils protruding, I think, is still visually interesting. But what really brought the piece together in my head was the idea that the graphite in the three pencils would each have a different hardness/softness. If you’ve never bought pencils from an art store before, your Hs (6H, 4H, 2H) are your harder graphites and will appear lighter on paper. Your Bs (6B, 4B, 2B) are your softer graphites and those you generally use at the end of drawing a piece to get your darkest dark (specifically the 6B). If you ever look in an artist’s toolbox, you will find many incredibly short 6B pencils. An HB pencil is essentially your normal run-of-the-mill pencil.

Now here’s the old banner for comparison’s sake:

And the new one:

I’m a little surprised I actually made it through one week of this Blog-A-Day Challenge. Here’s a list of links to all of the previous week’s entries if you missed any.

Day 1: Brea Grant’s Blog-A-Day Challenge
Day2: Previously… In Comics (Books Released 4/6/11)
Day 3: Whedon Wednesday: My Favorite 10 Buffy Episodes
Day 4: Break on through to the Darkseid
Day 5: Fantasy Casting: Nextwave: Agents of HATE
Day 6: “Marvelous” Massacre
Day 7: My Favorite Third Party Wii Exclusive Titles

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 8