The Mural

The other day I FINALLY finished the mural in my front entry way. It was my first experience painting on a wall (sheet rock). It was definitely a learning experience. When I started I really didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, so it took a bit of time to imagine something into existence. Then I discovered that when you draw on a wall with pencil it doesn't really erase very well, so as ideas changed there was no way to undo the other things drawn under it unless I wanted to take the time to paint over my old pencil marks, this was when I became frustrated and took a break from it for a while. I finally got to where I felt comfortable enough to begin painting, and I spent many hours on the floor mixing paint, putting in colors, & then remixing to get the right colors. I did all of the initial painting with acrylic, but I couldn't get happy with it no matter what I did, so I decided to take a break from it AGAIN. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, this project brought out the John McEnroe in me.

I decided I wasn't going to touch the darn thing again until I could figure out how to get it the way I wanted it. Once again I let it sit for a couple of months while I played around with different things. The other day I decided that I'd had enough with acrylic paint for a while, and regardless of how messy oil paint can be that is what I wanted to do. As I worked on this crazy abstract tree idea that I had going on I felt like things were just clicking & I took my oil palette into the front entryway and painted for 4 hours. Then Jon came home, we ate, and I went back to it for 3 more hours until voila! I can't even begin to tell you how sore I felt after spending that much time painting on the floor, my shoulders are still not over it, but I am really pleased with how it looks.