(Be sure to go back and read A Month of Murals: Part 1 of 3 if you haven’t yet.)
The Bloomington Ferry was a beast to paint in the short amount of time we gave ourselves. We worked 12 to 14 hours per day (me, 14 and Ashley, 12). Everything went really well with only a few small hiccups to overcome. We were working on a construction site and had to get used to painting with hard hats, orange vests, and safety harnesses on. We were also surrounded by tradesmen of all sorts doing their parts on the building and it was fun being one of the crew, albeit the oddball artists. It was HOT all week but luckily, we were painting on the north and east-facing walls, so we didn’t have much direct sun and a steady breeze kept us cool enough to not die. The wall looked more daunting in person but, once we got into our groove with it, we were able to complete the entire project and coat it in six days.
Just a couple of tradesmen blending in with the crew
The naked wall ready for some mural action
Primer with light gray drawing on top
Our goal for the look of the mural was to recreate the loose, blended style that I use on a much smaller scale in the studio. There, I paint loose and fast, blending the colors on the palette and on the wood panel with a large flat brush. But to accomplish this on a 25-foot wall was a different beast entirely. Initially, we tried to work together: Ashley rolling on cream splotches while I came in and blended in the lighter white color. After going at it for an hour or two, we called it a day and thought we had it. However, as we strolled back to the hotel, we finally got a look at what we’d painted from a distance.
“Polka dots,” I said and Ashley nodded in somber agreement.
Polka-dotty first attempt
We both knew what that meant: the next day we would have to rework the entirety of what we’d just painted. Deep breaths. Such is painting. We ordered some spicy Greek food, shared a bottle of wine, got some solid rest from pure exhaustion, and reapproached it the next day.
The solution lay in me working both colors quickly. I had both rollers loaded in their pans with me on the lift and I would furiously roll the wall, switching between colors and keeping my leading edge wet to effectively blend the two tones together on the wall. This left soft, barely visible edges and a loose background that served as the perfect backdrop to contrast with our highly visible figures. We had finally found a way to make the murals match the paintings and that felt damn good.
That’s better
Another aspect of my paintings that was always hard to reproduce in murals is the skin tone. On my paintings on wood panel I create in the studio, I collage torn pieces of brown kraft paper together to make the figures. This warm brown-toned paper works well for the skin of the workers, but we have yet to use collage on a mural. This is mainly because outdoor murals need to stand up to the elements and I don’t trust any paper adhered to a wall to achieve that longevity. In our past murals, we’ve tried shades of gray, cross-hatching, and we’ve even painted a figure with red skin (Morocco) searching for a look that captured the feeling of the paintings. These worked with some degree of success but again, the murals never quite matched the paintings.
“Why don’t you just mix colors that match the kraft paper?”, asked Ashley as we planned the Bloomington mural.
Mixing colors.
The answer is that I’ve thought of this in the past, but couldn’t see a flat, latex brown color creating the same look as the speckled brown paper. But after some further consideration, we decided to try and go for it with this mural. We mixed up some brown tones that we felt looked cohesive with our other colors (this took a while) and gave it a go on day four of the mural. In truth, from the moment we first started laying it in, it looked GOOD and we felt like we had once again overcome an obstacle to recreating the paintings in a large format on an outdoor wall. Booyah. Home stretch.
Ready to paint in the figures
Bringing the ferry pullers to life. It was working. Also, that umbrella saved my life.
Ferry pullers complete
Home stretch
On the final day of painting, Mini-Donuts and his family stopped by and his cool daughter deftly rolled some paint onto the wall. It was a great moment to share with the visionary who brought us to this place and time trusting us to make his wall a special place in the world. These human connections through art is my purpose on God’s green earth.
At the beginning, we had a goal of creating a mural that was as close to the style of the paintings as possible, and in the end, we thought it was a rousing success. We were very happy with the end result and the fella with the mini-donuts was as well. Booyah.
Finished ferry pullers (note the rope trailing off to the ferry)
Finished ferry with riders (note Bloomington Ferry Bridge pillars in the background)
