When A Painting Begins To Work It's Like Running A Marathon and Taking First Place At The Finish Line

If you have been following the blog posts, you know I have been struggling in the area surrounding the center of interest which is Roberts Point and the area below Roberts Bench. It seemed I continued to struggle on it up until the last couple hours of my working day. More intense and lighter colors were added just in the right places. Edges were softened. Detail was added or simplified in areas. At times, over the past few weeks on this project, I felt like giving up, but I knew I couldn't. Some days, I came home discouraged and frustrated. This morning, I almost didn't show up at work, because I felt a little sick like I could puke, but I came to work and got my second wind on the project. The mural is getting fun again and no longer a drudgery. By the end of the day, I felt good. I must have been smiling. People smiled at me. Perhaps my happiness shown on my face. Several employees stopped and made positive comments. They're liking the mural a lot! I'm happy. The client who hired me told me that the most important thing about the mural projects in the three buildings was that the employees must be happy. Well, there you go. I did it!

A lot is riding on the project for me to pull through on it. I can't afford to throw in the towel. I'm the kind of person who sticks to it until it is right anyway. I don't like to have nightmares about the things I create.

Back At It Again

Last Friday, the client asked me to clean up by removing the masking, my paint and brushes, ladders and supplies from the mural areas in both buildings. He was hosting VIP's the following Saturday morning. This morning, we only replaced some of the masking then got to painting. It was really weird to be able to look through the windows again. The Shop Manager, Jay Reynolds (the eagle and 'Jay Bird' guy) wants to get approval to paint over all the windows except his office window which has a nice wood veneer blind. I'm all for painting over the windows, but we'll have to prime it first so no light can come through, otherwise the effect will not be consistent with the rest.

As you can see by the pictures, we painted out the last eagle that we had blocked in (and the 'Jay Bird'), replacing it with a smaller, more proportionate and less obnoxious looking bird of prey. We didn't intend to leave the jay bird in. The whole thing was meant as a joke for Jay. We don't want the mural to be corny or silly, especially if I want to attract potential customers.

On the way to work this morning, Karen and I saw a very large Golden Eagle sitting on top of a power line pole. It was the biggest bird of prey we had ever seen! My best guess is that it stood about 3 feet plus from head to tail! Along this route, we will occasionally spot Ospreys, Red Hawks, Vulture Hawks, saw a Bald Eagle once, and lots of Ravens, Sea Gulls and other smaller bird variety. The birds of prey are usually seen sitting on a power line pole looking for rodents. We stopped below the bird and got out to view it. The bird just sat on top of the pole and didn't move. It was not threatened by us. If you had big, strong, sharp talons, would you be afraid? I called up to it by attempting my best eagle imitation, which wasn't very good. The eagle just looked down at us like it was saying, "Don't annoy me or I'll eat you!" There were no other birds around---wonder why? We decided that since the eagle was so big, it probably at the other birds, plus a few rodents!

Back to the mural...
We are now getting more serious about adding detail. In my mind, I have divided the mural into five sections. Each day, our goal is to nearly finish a section so we can have the mural painted by next weekend.