St. Francis Mural Project

 This pic was taken from my studio at home.  One great thing about parachute cloth is that it is very portable, just roll it up and off you go.

I'm not completely finished the under painting for second row, but impatience got the best of me and I hung it up anyway just to see how it looks.  It's very exciting to see it all come together.  The next row is the sky, finally!

St. Francis Mural Project

Progress is going well on second row. 

St Francis Mural Project

Almost finished underpainting for 1st row.

Hanging 2nd row in place.  Windows are a pane;)

St. Francis Mural Project

 Day two of underpainting...lots of white space remains.  Van Gogh wrote this about a facing a blank canvas: "Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’.

 Slappin' it on.

Blank-ness is almost gone, for this row anyway.  Vincent was wise.

St. Francis Mural Project

 

 Day two of drawing.   The projector I used to yesterday to trace was not ideal, quite a bit of distortion happened because of the size of the image, so I need to refine drawing by hand.  I always tell my students that a solid drawing makes for a solid painting.  Drawing is crucial!

 At this stage I'm interested in simplifying everything into flat shapes, detail comes much later.

 I'm working from the bottom up.  All the figures and path are in the first two bottom rows, so they will take longest to paint. 

  

Fortunately my studio at JD is just wide enough to fit mural

 This is Molly.  She's an 8 year old Shih Tzu that I am fostering.  She likes to watch me paint, but mostly she likes to sleep.

Washing in values for underpainting (on right)...so happy to get some paint on this thing.  Need to get bigger brushes if I'm ever going to finish!

St. Francis Mural Project

 Today we're hanging parachute cloth into place.  It is not as easy as it looks.

No seams!

The cherry picker operator is my trusty assistant, Hali...she insisted that I use the ladder.  We were able to hang and trace 3 rows of cloth at once (over 2 days). The finished mural will be another 7' taller than the white area on wall (27'x22'). 

St. Francis Mural Project

Site for St Francis Altarpiece Mural.

Studio is empty...ready to get started!

This is the material I'm painting on, it's called parachute cloth.

Priming parachute cloth. 

Here is the value study for the final comp.  Color coming soon.