Monday, October 27

After school I put in a few hours at the library. I finished the spots which is all I really wanted to finish today. Didn't get much else done, but did chat with an assortment of nice people.

Lissa is working on my list of animals. I want at least one creature for every letter of the alphabet. I was going to put one thing for each letter, now I want one creature and one object for each letter. I'm taking suggestions for any of these.

Also, I'm taking suggestions for quotes. I have been given a few and will have to post them soon so everyone can see which ones I'm considering.

It is a public space and my design is flexible so I figure I should take suggestions from all sorts of people.

Speaking of flexible. The people at the library are so accommodating. The space is the best ever because there is a work room right near where I'm painting. It has large tables for all my stuff and a sink for clean up. But the people that work at the library are even better than the space. They are so helpful and encouraging. I hope they speak up if I'm doing something they do not like- whether it has to do with supplies or the mural.

Until today I have been very self-conscious every time I climbed up the ladder. Ever since I fell last winter I've been a bit hesitant. But, today I didn't worry at all and was comfortable the whole time I was on the ladder. Whew...I'm glad for that, or this mural would have been a bit too stressful.

It was a good day.

Sunday 10-26-08 Starting to add patterns

So the library is not open for very long on Sunday.
I was able to paint for a little over three hours.
I worked on the wall where I need to transition from Mike's design to mine.
The bottom green area is doing what I want it to. The top green areas still need a lot more green circles before I can remove the blue painters tape.

This design is going to be full of texture and pattern. I don't want everything to be as dark or bold of color as I used today. I had to use these colors to get the transition I want. I don't want to use black in my painting, but had to because Mike did. The trees and dragon will be bolder color...and all the background color will be pale. That blue gray on much of the lower part will be softened a lot.

Saturday, Oct 25th

this picture shows the mountains of books that will have a stream of quotes flowing from them.

Today I worked on the Giraffe tree and the lavender squirrels. It doesn't look like I did much, but it was a good painting day.

In a picture in the previous post you can see Mike's mural to the far right. Our styles of painting and our designs are totally different. I hope to merge our two pictures using patterns of color and repeating circles. I hope it turns out how I see it in my head.

finally adding details

I got all the big shapes blocked in and then got to start on the details. I'm pretty happy with how this book tree is turning out. I'm going to put in a lot more images before I start adding any foliage around the trees.

My mural is underway. I expect it to take several more weeks and so thought I would try to post information and photos to show my progress.

The mural is at the Crawfordsville Public Library.

It all started with a letter from the Teachers' Retirement Assoc. here in town. They sent a letter out to about 8 local artists asking us to submit proposals for a mural in one section of the library. As it turned out only three of us turned in proposals. The TRA turned the sketches over to the library. The library board then accepted all three proposals and asked us all to paint.

We had all three submitted drawings for the center part of the Youth Services Area at the library. I had to re-draw mine to fit in an area to the left of that wall. The other two artists, Jill Stockwell and Mike Bowman, started their murals weeks before I did. I imagine they are about done and hope to post pictures of their work as well.

My drawing is surrealism. Four large trees dominate the picture. They are not normal trees, but rather a tree made of books and a patterned tree that unzips, and a giraffe tree and a water tree. The other dominate image is a dragon reading a book. I need to work on the dragon soon. She doesn't really look like a dragon yet and people think she is a kangaroo. (Next Saturday she gets painted.)Anyway, pictures to be posted soon.

First day of mural

So... on the first day all I did was take paint and sketch in the larger shapes. No, that is not a kangaroo. She will be a beautiful purple dragon when I am done.