Sacramento Retiree Photographs Public Murals

Lezlie Sterling/lsterling@sacbee.com

I came across this article in the Sacramento Bee about a local retired man who takes regular walks around the city photographing every public, private, amateur and professional mural, he can find. He meanders around, with no destination, documenting some great art.

photo by Russ Andris

You can see Russ Andris' photos here. Enjoy!

My Birthday Present

Since I started creating more of presence online for my art business (murals, web design, illustrations, etc), I have found so many wonderful artists! It's awe-inspiring and intimidated at the same time, you know what I mean.

One of the artists I really liked is Stephanie Fizer, http://stephaniefizer.com. I think her style is adorable, and I'm in love with her color palettes. So, I sent my husband a link to her Etsy shop and told him that's what I wanted, if he was so inclined to buy me a present :)

And, he did! These are little girls as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Maybe for Christmas I'll ask for the Wizard of Oz illustrations...

Transported to the Tuscan Countryside

The weather's a little crazy with so much rain in May, but I'm not going to complain because I know how hot the summers get here. I'm not in a hurry for that! Unfortunately, it did effect my painting schedule. I finally finished this week.

The first final version

The final step was painting the crumbling wall with exposed brick. I also added long cracks with rocks broken out. In addition, the client requested a embossment around the door. He felt it need a little more depth.

The left side of the exposed brick wall

After sitting with it for a day or two, the clients decided they wanted to take out and rearrange some elements.

The first version of the left side

Even though I painted it exactly like my sketch, they decided they wanted a few changes. This totally fine because it's their wall and they are the ones who are going to be living with it. 

The second final version. The client wanted to remove the large brick area on the bottom left. They felt it distracted from the scene in the arch.  They also requested I add a small brick area on the bottom right to incorporate some real exposed bricks and removed the circular chips in the wall.

So it is clear to perspective clients and to avoid any problems, it is written in my contract that any major changes made to the painting after the sketch approval will be an extra charge. I've never had a problem with a client about it, but better safe than sorry.

The final mural

In the end, you want the client to be happy with their artwork while maintaining the integrity of your work.

Tuscan Landscape Mural - Countryside Done!

I finished the countryside scene inside the archway today. Here's a couple pictures. The clients are pretty happy with it, and so am I.

I'm glad I got it done today because they are having a party on Saturday, and I wanted it to be a good stage of completion to be shown. I gave them a few of my business cards to hand out, in case any party folk are interested in their own landscape.

Tuscan Landscape Mural - Paint on the Wall

I finally started the Tuscan landscape outdoor mural today. With weather, traveling clients, and other delays, it's been a couple weeks since this project got started. But, today I was finally able to put paintbrush to wall. Here's a few photos of my progress.

The canvas.

I chose my vanishing point and taped a string to it. An old trick, but it's an easy way to figure out perspective. Do you notice the gray smug above my hand? That's from trying to erase pencil with water. Note: when painting a mural, make sure your client has more of the wall color paint. It will become your "eraser".

Mixing up my paints. I really watered down my paints this time for two reasons. One, it brushes on more smoothly and quickly on a rough surface. Two, I wanted to paint layers of washes, to build up my color, highlights and shadows.

Painting the first wash of the mountains. Using the washes allowed me to work quickly. Instead of painted each section completely, I was able to fill out every part of the painting. This helped me to make sure I did my spacing and composition correctly.

A little more detail in the washes.

So far, so good! I was able to flesh everything out. Now, I can go back and build up the details. Once the arch scene is done, I'll start working on the crumbling wall.

Little Birds on a Fence

My mom is reading garden blogs right now since going outside and working in her actual garden is too much for her allergies. She's been sending me garden decorating ideas. One of them is murals on backyard fences.

So, for Mother's Day, I painted some birds on her fence, like they are resting on the top ledge. I did a quick sketch of  a character, trying to keep it uncomplicated. I used acrylic paints because they are the most durable for outside murals.

The fence was old and weathered, so I started out with drawing the shapes, then sanding down the fence to get off dirt, dust and moss. I probably should have hosed it off first, but I was trying to be quick.

I knew painting on the fence would be rough, so I kept the shapes and colors simple. The metal fence and shell bowl on the picture above were taken down after this shot.

The final step will be seal it with a varnish to keep out the weather.

Next up for mom's fence, lizards!

Illustration Friday - Cocoon

Okay, I paint this last month, but I thought it fit perfectly for this week's Illustration Friday topic. I mean, what is a better definition of "to envelop or surround protectively" than a mother lovingly holding her new baby? Happy Mother's Day!!

Tuscan Garden Mural - Sketches for the Client

I was hired to paint a Trompe-l'oeil mural in my clients backyard on a garage wall facing their garden. Trompe-l'oeil  is French for 'trick the eye'. For those of you who don't know, it's a style of painting that creates an optical illusion, a three-dimensional, realistic image.

They just finished a 4-year remodel project on a beautiful house in Sacramento and they want a Tuscan countryside mural to finish off the garden. Here's a couple sketch options I showed them. What do you think?

 Click on the images to see them bigger. These are the two options for inside the arch, the center piece of the mural . If you click the links below, you can see the whole mural.

http://www.griffmobile.com/muralsketches/tuscanoutdoorgarden1.jpg

http://www.griffmobile.com/muralsketches/tuscanoutdoorgarden2.jpg

Magical World Mural - Clouds, Forests, and the Sun!

Here's a couple photos of my progress so far. I've got the major work for the clouds, hills and sun done. I'm currently working on the forest.

I thought things were moving along nicely, considering time restraints, but I realized when I start getting into the smaller details, it will actually take more time. This is where loosening up my style to be more simple and bold on mural details (since they are meant to be looked at from across the room) might come in handy.

Illustration Friday - Detective

Look closely - sometimes even the smallest voices have something important to say!

Scary Dinosaurs on the Wall!

The first round of dinosaur sketches for this little 3-year-old boy were just not scary enough. I was going for cute dinos, but I guess I underestimated the bravery of this little boy!

He wanted a bunch of different dinosaurs, so his parents hired me to paint 4 vignette scenes around his room. I don't know much about dinosaurs beyond "Land of the Lost", so I had to find some good references.

He has a pretty big room, so the T-Rex almost takes up a whole wall. It IS one of the biggest dinosaurs!

His mom told him he had to stay out of the room, but he couldn't help himself from coming in and checking on my progress, telling me about dinosaurs. His knowledge was impressive!

It's good to know I made a dinosaur expert happy.

The Magical World Mural - Background Progress

Here's a quick post about the progress of BeaBug's magical world mural. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on, so I may have to thin it out as I start painting. Since it's a personal project (non-paying work), it's going at a slow, but steady pace. With an active 2-year-old,  I can only paint when she's sleeping, or occupied with Dad.

So far, I'm using latex paint, with large paint brushes and rollers. When I start getting into the details, it will be more acrylic and latex mixes.

I wanted the bottom of the wall to be simple since most of it will be covered by furniture.

I have one corner that is a evening scene, so I went with a purple-pink sky, like just after the sun goes down.

I blended it with a paint brush into the blue. The edge might be a little harsh in places, but it will be covered by either clouds or trees.

On to the next step! With the background painted, now I am drawing the scenes on the wall. I think it's going to be a combination of freehand and tracing using the projector.

Ilustration Friday - Rescue

Hi Everyone! It's my first IF illustration, even though I've been thinking about it for a long time. I had a lot of fun painting this little bird who needs rescuing from a tree top, hee hee.  Let me know what you think, comments are welcome!

P.S. Does anyone else have a Canon MX310 scanner/printer? I'm still having trouble getting my scans to look good. I have to do some color adjustments and I just don't think it does the original artwork justice.

Earth Mother, Final in a Series

I started this series of illustrations a few years ago, when my friends first started having babies. I began
sketching mothers swaddling and cuddling their babies and ended up with four sketches I wanted to paint. I got through three. Then I had a baby and the last one got put on hold for a while, you know how it is.

Anyway all this twittering, blogging and chatting with my fellow illustrators is really inspiring and motivating me to get back into my paint box and watercolor papers. So here is the final painting, followed by the three previous ones. I hope you like them!

Oh, my scanner isn't working well, so I had to take a picture of this painting. The colors are close, but not as good as the scans of the other paintings.

Colorful Inspiration

I was wandering around in the garden this morning with the BeaBug and I was tickled by all the beautiful, colorful flowers blooming. Thank you, Husband. He has a green thumb, I do not. I love the beginning of springtime when the flowers and trees start blooming, the vegetables start growing, the bees start buzzing...sounds like a Disney song, right?

Anyway, the colors on the flowers are so vibrant, maybe that's why I like them so much. If you get really close, you can see the wonderfully natural palettes they display. So, I'm sharing my garden paint palette with you, for your own inspiration. I've already found a couple color combinations I can't wait to paint. Enjoy!

And the busy little bees that make these blossoms possible!