On the Just Shaping of Murals

This past weekend, I challenged myself to do a door-sized mural in a day.  I had been commissioned to do work for a store called Portals in Berkeley Springs, WV; the owner was thrilled when I suggested that we use "doors" and "windows" as the theme.

In August, I went into the store, which is in a beautiful building where homeopathic medicines used to be made, and took pictures of the beautiful oak cabinets:

David and I got moulding that was similar to this.  He assembled it and and I painted it to look like this.  The color in the photo is a little off because of the fluorescent lighting.

Last Friday, David affixed the plywood panel on which I would be painting onto a solid frame, which we mounted directly onto the wall in the store.

Once that had been done, we attached the moulding to the plywood, to complete the "door" effect.

  This past weekend was the Apple Butter Festival in Berkeley Springs, so in order to get a parking space we arrived early.   I set up and started working at about 11 AM.

Tom, the owner of Portals, had chosen the Bubble Nebula to go into this first portal.   We found a photograph similar to this one in an issue of Beautiful Universe.


So here goes...I set this goal for myself without telling Tom what I had in mind.  I'll be honest with you:  I asked myself more than once what the heck I had been thinking.

I had to keep reminding myself that I had customers who called me the "Queen of Starfields".  Of course I could do this!!!

12:15 PM

3PM
There was a point at which I really thought I had lost my touch.  It's a lot to ask of oneself to paint, not only in public, but also under the clock.  I love painting in public:  I like talking to people and explaining how I do what I do.  But there is always a fear that I will blow the process completely, forget how to paint or how to render clouds and stars...you know.
Finally I hit my stride!

4:15 PM

The finished product!  6:30 PM

I'm sorry that the photo of the finished piece isn't better but I hope to get a photographer in to try to do a better job with the lighting.  So there I was, at 6:30 PM, with a finished mural and no brain cells left!

Oh, and a stiff neck...