My first post is a project I did for a friend and colleague who wanted a mural in their living room. This is a challenging project since I have only painted one other mural. That project was a team effort where we painted English garden flowers on the walls of a large church fellowship hall. I must have contributed to that project before cameras because I have no pictures! Recently I found out that they dry-walled that entire room thereby hiding my first mural until the post-apocalyptic archaeologists dig it from among the rubble.
There will be several posts on this current project since I am taking pictures of each step. My friends, the Plympton’s want three archways looking out at a beautiful garden scene. My first step was to take measurements of the wall. I then did what I often do when trying to figure something out, what any art geek with NERD SKILLS would do, model the wall and arches in AutoCAD.
CAD model with dimensions
Using the geometry in the CAD model, I configured the arches on the wall using a tape measure, T-square, level, and string.
Since we (the clients and I) were working from several references to build the final scene, I drafted a scaled-down version of the wall in my
Sketch of the mural scene
sketchbook and produced a pencil rough of the scene. Once the design was approved, I applied a grid to the sketched scene to transfer it onto the arches on the wall.
Next time I will post more pictures of the work-in-progress.