Two days before Thanksgiving I received a two sentence email asking if I had ever done a mural or would be interested in working on one. I get a lot of spam, and this seemed to exciting to be true, so I did my best not to get my hopes up. I had never done a mural but always dreamt of painting one.
Minutes later I was on the phone with a lovely woman talking about a vision for a large scale mural. I dove into drafting a proposal and within the week had signed a contract.
The vision was to commemorate the Channel Islands and it’s wildlife. The walls were 12x60 and 12x20 and rounded. I got to work on the drafting a digital rendering of the mural right away. I drew from 7am to midnight or later almost every night for weeks. The original approach was scrapped near the end of the process and shifted to a field guide approach with days before painting was to begin.
First Approach: Underwater and island profiles.
Second Approach: Field Guide
It took 2 weeks of planning and drafting and 3 weeks of painting (10 hrs a day) but it came together!
Zach Brose was hired as my assistant. He helped me trace the mural onto the wall using my projector. Then he and his partner Jess Manning helped with the flat tone of the islands. I painted all of the wild life and text and added all of the line work.
The project was completed on time and looked great!
Turns out I absolutely LOVE working on murals and cannot wait to paint another one.
Client is private. Mural location is in Orange County.
TOOLS USED:
PAINTS: liquitex heavy body professional grade paint for islands and wildlife + paint pens for the text and outlines.
DIGITAL DRAWING: Adobe Fresco
EXTRA: Scaffolding, 8ft ladder, Fangor Projector, iPad Pro + MacBook Pro,
