It took a few conversations to work out the details, but today I'm beginning a farm mural for a new client. The mural will be going in a play area in a private home. The client has asked me to incorporate the old family farm into the scene. These are some of the images she sent me.

This is a sketch I had prepared for her before I received a third building that needs to go in, and it's also minus all the animals that will be added. She requested the middle building be red.
After more discussion she also decided that she wanted this 'window' scene to appear as though you were standing in a barn looking out and she wanted it to be a substantial size (5.5' wide). It was decided a stable door (or dutch door) would work well, so now the pig will be replaced with a rooster sitting on the lower half of the door, since the pig would not be tall enough to be looking into a half opened door. Five and a half feet felt too wide for a single door, so I'll be doing a double dutch door. Part of this will be painted on canvas (the scene) and once I installed it the surrounding wall will be painted to look like barn wood walls and I will add the open top doors.
I sketched the door opening last night (sorry, hard to see).....the green tape on the sides represent where the opened doors will be...so partially on canvas and partially on the wall.
I was also commissioned to do a child's portrait yesterday from a previous client in Atlanta.
Isn't he adorable. I'm looking forward to starting this.

Here's some information on the artist who painted the murals in the home mentioned/shown in the previous post.
Some more of his work.....

Lots Going On

Finally got my computer back with its new hard drive. Lesson to all.........back up, back up, back up! Its devastating opening my iphoto and finding all pictures of my work ......gone....years of work....gone. I still have the old hard drive and can look into seeing if the data can be retrieved, but that takes money, so it'll have to wait.
Meanwhile I've decided to start doing some housecleaning on the side to try and get a more consistent flow of money coming in, mural work is just not paying the bills right now, and the stress is getting old. It wasn't easy deciding to go back to doing this kind of work again....a slight bruise to my ego, one month I'm painting murals for a $29 million dollar mansion on the ocean and the next I'm cleaning one, go figure. But I'm looking at it this way.........I'm getting paid to exercise! I hate exercising but I need to badly, all this inactivity from lack of work is, shall we say.......showing..lol. I'm also working on sketches for two mural clients, so that keeps my spirits up.
Actually I got lucky with my first new cleaning client, a really cool young couple (with new baby) oh, and four dogs. A gorgeous huge home, and I wish I could remember the history of it. I remember she said it was built by a senator.....was it around 1900?...not sure. Most recently though it was used as a dorm for students from Bryn Mawr College. This couple bought the property almost two years ago to save it from demolition.....can you imagine. When I drove up the driveway the first time, I said out loud......oh, my god!
Anyway........I took some pictures today. I'll have to ask the owner again who the mural artist was, but I think I remember her saying he had done some work in the Panama Canal? I'll check on that. I was just so busy trying to take everything in visually that I wasn't really listening.
This is the formal living room where the mural work is.
And here are some close ups of the work.

Here are some photos of the ceiling in the room that is used as an office. This little seating area is at the far end of the large room.
The ceiling

A shot of some of the beautiful stained glass windows in the hallway.
And this is a shot of some of the original wallpaper that is in the family room.

Bummer!

Won't be posting for a few days.................my hard drive died on April Fools Day..perfect timing eh?
If anyone needs to reach me call my cell at 561-351-9548 Thanks :-)
Gosh....what am I going to do with myself, yikes!

How to make a clay baby

I know.......nothing to do with mural painting, but sometimes something just catches my eye that I want to share. Sorry if the music from my slideshow collides with this....just hit the little speaker on my slideshow to turn it off. Check this video out too.

From Start To Finish

While I was visiting fauxforum.com this morning I came across a link in one of their discussion threads that I thought may be of interest. Its a step by step of the creation of an exterior mural, from the sketching process all the way to completion that is posted on handletteringforum.com by artist Tony Segale.

Here's a website that may be of interest to the beginning mural artist. It has a lot of basic information and some interesting links to follow. And I'm just posting this blog site for its wonderful list of other (mostly design) blogs....a fun way to spend an 'indoor' day and get some inspiration.

Women of the graveyard and one special guy

Spent today strolling in a graveyard of all places. Philadelphia's graveyards are amazing, simply full of beauty. The architecture of the crypts again, amazing. The artwork, sculptures.....I was in awe. The crypts really captured my attention. In one section of the graveyard it was like walking into a village full of miniature houses.
Look carefully at this one. On either side there are two stone chairs that welcome you to sit and stay for a visit.
You're also able to peek into most of these crypts, and 99% of them were adorned with stained glass windows....gorgeous.
And then there's the women....
And look who we found........the father of baseball! Spring is in the air.

More affordable options for these tough economic times

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY! I'm becoming a big, big fan of silhouette murals. In some ways they make a bigger impact than the traditional painted mural, but somehow at the same time they're easier on the eye and spirit.....the message is there without the fuss.
Even if you still want to throw a little (or a lot:-) of
color behind the image.
The ones below are some of mine, done at the KIPP Charter School in Philadelphia, Pa.
I do silhouette work for at least half the cost of traditional colored murals, so for clients?....its a good look, at a great price.

Got a copy of the Dharma Trading Company Catalog the other day. They've got such neat stuff but I always seem to forget about them until I get a catalog in the mail. Not sure why, they've got things that I'd actually like to try......banners, the large size 24"x 48" for under 10 bucks and with the hanger.
A tablecloth/wall hanging 5'x 8.5' 100% cotton for $20 and change....wonder what that would be like to paint a small mural on? Course you'd have to prime it and its gone a shrink some.
They have a projector for under $30.
I used a similar one (Tracer) when I was first starting out and had little money and it was twice that price.
The Aiptek pocket cinema/projector is what I'd like to get my hands on now, thinking it would be cool to take on jobs and be able to project small images into mural work. Not sure if it could really be used that way, but it be a lot easier to carry around than the big projector I have now. But work is slow, so it'll have to wait :-(
Anyway, if you don't know Dharma, check em out....they've got all kinds of stuff there for the artist and craft person.....paints, dyes, tools, airbrush equipment, stenciling stuff, clothing.....the list goes on.

AIPTEK PocketCinema V10

Know What You're Painting

I went to one of my links in the sidebar (Great Artist Resources) to look for an interesting read with my morning coffee and came across this. It's a site with veterinary anatomical illustrations .....wish I had discovered this sooner. I couldn't get the link to work, so go to the right sidebar and click on Great Artist Resources....click on Anatomy and you'll find the link there. (There's a lot of great information on the main site, but I stay away from shareware downloads and just use the external links. Shareware can make your computer vulnerable to hackers.)
Sometimes I think we forget about the obvious. What a great way to eliminate the frustration of trying to draw/paint a proper animal.....go to the source....deep inside the source to understand what you are painting.

New Photos From the Florida Mansion Job

I found some new images of the murals I painted for the mansion in Manalapan, Fl. this past year. This is the third mansion built by Frank McKinney that I've had the pleasure of creating murals for. This mural if you remember, was intended for the main elevator, but found its home in the main foyer instead.
There are several articles about the project in the Media link on Mr. McKinney's website. There's even a peek of the mural in a China newspaper!
I was also able to find a couple of short video interviews with Mr. McKinney. One which aired on WXEL (So. Florida public television) where the mural could be seen in several shots.

And shorter video which aired on WPEC-CBS12, where there's a quick shot of the mural that was done for the service elevator....don't blink ;-)

Types Of Inks...Which To Use

A fellow artists wrote me asking for information on the paint printing process that I've mentioned in previous posts, and her email brought to my attention how little I do know about the printing process in regards to inks. Here's a bit of info I found (at oddparts.com) while trying to educate myself. And you can go here to read about archival inks.

What is the difference between standard dye-based ink and pigmented ink?

1. Water Resistance

   • The dye in the dye-based ink dissolves in water like sugar does in water -- completely.
   • Pigment does not dissolve completely. It is more like a flour and water mixture.
   • Because of this, dye-based inks flow better and have been the standard in inkjet printers. But the dye will re-dissolve and the ink will flow across the paper if drops of water hit the paper.
   • Pigmented ink particles tend to settle into the tiny fibers that make up the paper. As the ink drys, the pigment particles get stuck in the fibers. Thus, the pigmented inks are more water resistent than the dye-based inks. Only about 5 to 10 percent of the ink will re-flow if the paper is hit by water.

2. Fade Resistance

   • The molecules in dye-based inks are spread out. You might think of dye-based ink on paper as similar to a beach covered with sand. Because of this, dye-based ink tends to fade quicker, since all of the molecules are exposed to the chemical and sunlight-caused reactions that fade the ink. You may notice fading of dye-based inks exposed to direct sunlight commonly in 6 to 12 weeks, although when protected from air and sunlight, these inks can last several years. However, new dyes developed originally by HP, Fuji, and Epson have improved the fade resistance of dye-based inks to be equivalent to the capability of most pigments.
   • Pigment particles are similar to large pebbles on a beach. It is much more difficult for sunlight and chemicals to react with all of the pigment molecules, since most of them are hidden inside the "pebbles". Pigmented inks will usually last for several months before fading becomes noticeable, and when protected from air and sunlight, these inks can last for many years.
   • Special Pigmented inks are those which are rated as "Archival Quality" Archival quality pigmented inks use special pigments to improve the fade performance beyond that of normal pigmented inks. Fading becomes noticeable when exposed to direct sunlight in 6-12 months, and when protected from air and sunlight these inks will last for decades.
   • For extremely long archival conditions, the best thing to do is simply to enclose a CD with the document or photographs. That way, if there is any damage down the road, the customer can simply reprint the material.

3. Print Quality

   • It is possible to get more "color" into dyes than into pigments. Therefore, dye-based colors tend to be more vibrant than pigment-based colors. And pigmented black inks tend to be slightly lighter than dye-based inks.
   • Dye-based black inks tend to be better for text printing, whereas pigmented black inks often are designed more to blend in a graphics application.
   • Photography usage depends upon the overall printer design. For example, HP uses pigmented black inks for normal printing, but their special photo cartridges have an additional dye-based photo black. Epson 6-color printers often use dye-based inks, whereas their 4-ink systems often use pigmented inks.
   • "Special Pigmented" inks have color vibrancy similar to that of dye-based inks, but there is still a difference noticeable to the professional.

Thoughts?

I like how changing this to a sepia tone mural changes the whole feel of it. Thoughts anyone?