Anatomy of a Mural, week one...

I was recently commissioned to do a mural 

by new homeowners

who wanted to add memories of their

600 acre Colorado ranch into their new home in 

Rancho Santa Fe California.

We started with a 22 foot wall,

a scale drawing and lots of paint and brushes.

Many ingredients go into building a mural...

Let's start with help...

HELP!

Being a large wall, it's really nice to have another artist to work with, 

toss around ideas and get the job done in a timely manner.

Though it can be ricky asking another artist to join in on the mural fun ...

not so with my friend Carole Mayne.

Our styles compliment each other, along with mutual admiration...

did I mention Carole is FABULOUS at  painting flowers!

And...

there were many flowers going into this mural,

as the home owner spent long hours planting 

flowers on her Colorado ranch.

Here are examples of Carole's original oil paintings of flowers,

gorgeous!

Next...

visual aids are a must.

Fortunately, the home owners provided us with many photos, 

stories and details of the ranch to work with.

We could clearly see why they fell in love with and 

sadly left this beauty behind.

So let's get down to it...

or up to it on scaffolding.

Scaffold was a must for ease of moving around 

in the clouds and mountain tops...

and it came in handy as a work bench

once we worked our way down the wall .

Step one...

we started griding out the wall and sketching in our scene

with water color pencils...

they just melt into the paint and don't leave pencil marks.

Step two...

once the drawing lines are in, we started doing 

value washes to determine our darks and lights

and the planned depth of the scene.

Step three...

start adding in the  color!

Once we got our sky in with graded blues

and fluffy colorful clouds, we were able to start adding in color 

to the distant mountains and work our way forward.

We were originally only going to do the large 22 foot wall, 

though in the planning stages we all decided the seating alcove to the left

needed to be added in to the mural plan to give a complete surround of the scene.

We all agree...

that was a very good decision!

Carole painting in shadows and grass 

in the seating alcove.

This was the end of our first week.

We got most of the environment in...sky, mountains, meadows, wild flowers, 

grass, rocks...and sooooo many pine trees, Spruce & Ponderosa Pines.

There are many photos and steps I'm leaving out here...way too many to share, though this is a good idea of what went into making this scene come to life.

Next post will share some of the detail we 

brought into the scene on week two...

it's in the details!

Visit it HERE

See you there!