More on the Mural

Well, lots of progress has been made on the mural project. I have my engineer and brother to thank for that! :-D My brother put it rather well..."You didn't need me to do very much except hold something for a few seconds and then not go away because I was going to be needed in another few minutes. Ok do you still need me? Yes, in about 10 minutes. So I can come back in 10 minutes? No, that was just an estimate, I might need you in 2!..." He was such a good sport. I think our engineer must have assumed we were both crazy...After several days of assembling the frames, it was time to strech the canvas. I had never stretched anything so large before, 3' by 5'8" was my previous record. This canvas is much heavier, and the supports much larger (6' by 6') and though I bought special canvas pliers for the job, we couldn't figure out how to use them for a gallery wrap and our engineer ended up devising a plier system in 3 parts that worked remarkably well. Once all 6 panels were stretched, we did the corners to finish them. Now, I've got 6 panels to prime. Oh goody! This morning I mixed a batch of gesso (had to dilute it) and used almost the whole batch on the first coat, 3 cups of liquid in total. Yikes...I hope I have enough gesso to go around...

Here are the 6 frames assembled in the mural's configuration. I had a hard time getting the whole thing in the camera's view, and I had to step outside the garage door to do it. It looks so much smaller on the ground, it's really decieving...

Over here, some corners are done, some not. That's my first mural in the background, it's so tiny!

There's me finishing the first coat of gesso. Uh-oh, my other self has gotten trapped inside the canvas, noooo!!!

Upon closer inspection I saw a Royal Guardsman and a Bobby taking a break on, from their perspective, what seemed to be a pristine white field. I bet it's a very relaxing spot...

In other news, I'm happy to say my herb garden survived a rather violent dousing during a rainstorm. The borage plant had a few leaves broken (which was practically the whole plant) and the catnip was lying half out of the pot, but it's bounced back almost to normal. :)

 

See you next time!