Mural News

The other piece of news I have is that Trish has finished the Train Mural that I've helped paint previously. I haven't been able to go visit her studio since this post (and that time I was beyond anything resembling helpfulness).
The commissioners of the murals have been complaining about the absence of finished work, so Trish has had to complete them on her own.
:( Sorry Trish.
If I'd had a reliable work schedule, I would have been able to sort something out, but... things are still crazy right now. (We're training up a couple of new people at the moment, though, so things should improve!)

Oh the up side, this means that we only have the Lions mural, and a couple of the single-panel works, to complete... and all of the old projects will finally be finished!
*insert premature applause & fanfare*

This will clear up a lot of space in the art studio. But most importantly, she can now accept tenders for new projects, for which she will actually get $income$!
NB. She did get paid for the previous ones, but only at the beginning... which, remember was a few years and several rounds of "Work for the Dole" ago. That funding is now long gone.

With any luck, I'll be able to organise a mass visit to her place, with some of the other volunteers that I'm in the process of tracking down. Hopefully, we'll be able to have a get together by Christmas - or for Christmas, if everything opens up sufficiently before then!

Yet More Mural Photos

Okay, so I didn't get a chance to actually paint anything last Thursday (that's what I would have done if I hadn't fallen ill), but I did manage to get more photos of the murals!

Once again, all images are courtesy of Andrew. I managed to get copies of the images directly from his PC, because attaching them to emails would have taken him about half an hour (even on broadband). I'd forgotten to bring a USB Flash drive for this purpose, but luckily my MP3 player also doubled as a data storage device! Ain't technology wonderful?

This first image shows how far we got with the History train mural the last time we were there. Trish had moved the panels to the downstairs gallery so we could work upright, and reach all the areas of the artwork.
(That's Trish standing in front of the mural in the second picture.)

We only did a little bit of work that time, but I managed to get all the nameplates on the carriages done (the little bronze-ish rectangles above each of the doors). Each plate lists one of the wars that Australians fought in, ranging from the Boer to the Gulf Wars.

There are other changes than that, though - among them, you'll find that Mr Big Blue Coat Guy has changed again, this time he's green and he has legs now:


Also, I managed to get a photo of the three new panels of the Lions mural.

I've painted about four sections on this new part, but the rest was painted by the WFTD participants and, of course, the people I'm currently painting with.

I've taken more, but you'll have to see those under "Dinkycam"...

Train Mural, Previously

We haven't been able to work on the murals for the past couple of weeks, due to conflicting engagements (I've been working most of this week, for one). I wanted to put up some of the painting we did last time, but sadly, we haven't taken any new photos since the last.
But! I remembered that I did see some other photos of murals that I'd helped paint, and after a little search, I came up with - Ta Da! More Mural Photos! Except these aren't "New" as much as they are "Old", because these actually date from some time last year, not some time last month!

First, an image of the History Train mural, as it was just before the Over The Walls studio relocated. I believe these date from mid-2007, but I'll have to check with the other participants to be sure.

This image really illustrates the big difference in the figures on the first and fourth panels from the left. But the most notable change is the colour of the train. In these images, you can still see the blue underpainting that was used as a tone guide. This layer helps to preserve the light and dark areas of the mural as the top layer of colour fades over time. I understand that the life expectancy of a mural like this one is at least ten years (depending on the quality of the paint job, of course).

Also, another (clearer) photo of the name-plate mural that was shown in a previous post.

Thanks again to Andrew for taking these images, and those of the Lions Mural. You can definitely see a difference when you use a digital camera over an older film type. Mayhaps I will be getting one for myself, soon...?

NB. I had to upload this batch of images twice, because after the first attempt I realised I'd forgotten to add the copyright notice. Whoops!

The Train Mural

And now, the promised mural images!

Incidentally, I never got to go to the studio after my last post, so instead I got my friend Andrew to email his pictures to me. These were all taken by him over the past couple of weeks, as the images developed.
We have been trying to get this mural finished, as the clients have been patiently waiting to have this one (and several others) up on the walls. It has been taking a while, but circumstances have prevented us from getting into it sooner - mostly work, studies, transport, people leaving the project, etc. etc.

The mural is to be installed in/on the Boolarra Memorial Hall. The title is "History Train", and it represents a cross-section of the past century or so, with soldiers returning from various wars in which Australian troops had involvement (from the Boer War to the present day). Since Boolarra was on a train line at one point, we used the train as both a symbol of homecoming, and a visual reminder of the town's history.

This is one of a series of murals that we have painted for the township. There are several more, some of which have already been installed (and which I will include later). Click on the images to make them bigger, or, better yet, right-click and open in a new window or tab.

This is how the mural looked as of late May 2008. It covers five panels, each approx. 90cmx180cm. The panels we use as a base are the same type used in building houses, similar to plasterboard. We paint on panels instead of directly onto the wall because this way we don't have to work on-site, and the clients can install and relocate the murals as they see fit. NB. This was taken after most of the work shown below.

This shows how far the mural had progressed. Okay, so most of the stuff had been painted in already, but if you look closely you'll see that the guy in the front-centre, and the man standing to the right of him, are a tad "impressionistic". Well, let's be blunt, they're NOT FINISHED.

So, compare this picture...

...to this one, taken a day later. Andrew has managed to give him some more recognisable features. Incidentally, his model for the face and ears was Yours Truly, who kept getting annoyed at the repeated requests to "hold your head still". I made him bring some picture books on anatomy the next time!

More progress. We've altered the face again, because we realised that his head was out of proportion to the rest of his body (you can't tell because of the way the image is cropped, but he looked like a big fat giant compared to the people around him). The fellow standing next to him now has a face, and doesn't he seem pleased about it?


You'll probably notice that these three fellows have also received a face-lift since the first picture was taken above.

More of the crowd. A lot of the faces and figures needed retouching and adjusting - some of them were, shall we say, "a good start". That's my arm working on the faces. Compare these people to...

...this group, and you'll see what I mean.
Now, I don't want to create the impression that what was there before was "wrong". It was fine, it just needed further development - like a rough draft, compared to the final work. It's actually really, really hard to get a painting to look like the source image. I felt bad that the original artists were unable to finish it, so I made sure that their work was finished off nicely.

This couple were mostly finished, but there were some technical problems - namely, neither of them had a face. So, we fixed that.

More faces and details that needed rendering are shown here, fixed. Some of these appear in unfinished form in the 2nd picture above.
Most of this was Andrew's work. He thinks that he has make the blonde person in the centre look almost like John Lennon in profile. Do you agree?

We will give you more photos after the next time I get out there (hopefully Tuesday). In the meantime, here is one more photo that Andrew took of me while mucking around with his camera. He held the shutter open while he slowly got closer to me, and this was the "interesting" result...

Seriously, WHAAA? It makes me look like I've got weird facial hair, and a bald spot you could crack eggs on! It makes me look like... not... me.
Anyhoo, thanks again to Andrew for taking the pix. There will be more to come!