Owls and Aspens

Hi Everyone! I'm posting about a project on the day I painted it...whaaat? So prompt.

I loved this one. Not only for obvious reasons (got to paint fluffy baby owlets), but for reasons not shown in these pictures. I loved painting this wall because the owner of it was an extraordinarily sweet person with a cute, cute family. When I started painting murals for money about 14 (WHAT?!?) years ago, I only really painted for family friends, or friends of friends. But now that my business has grown, my clients are mostly strangers. And I love when I meet nice strangers and get to connect with their families. Painting inside someone's home means asking a lot of questions about their lives. It means being in their space for hours on end and playing with their children. It sometimes means eating meals in their homes or accepting a bottomless cup of tea. This job allows me to meet people in my city that I would otherwise maybe never get to know. In all these years, I can only remember a couple of instances where my gut was telling me to avoid a Stranger Danger situation, and I did not go through with a mural. The other 99% of my clients have been pretty darn lovely. Anyways, with this one, I just felt very welcomed into this family's home. They even offered to let me and my fiance stay the night when they heard our furnace was broken (fixed now!). More than that, these murals seem to mean a lot to them. I am slowly transforming a dark and dingy basement into a lighter, brighter space for their children to play. They are picking trees, colors, and animals that are significant to their family. The funniest thing was, after all that thought and planning, none of us realized until I was finished that I had painted an owl mom of twins - just like my client and her children. How did we miss that one? 

This is one of 3-4 smaller vignette-type of projects we have planned in their home. Loving the challenge of creating pieces that fade off into their wall, instead of completely covering it. Super fun!

Yachats Beach House Mural

This last mural project had some serious perks.  I got to stay at a beach house in Yachats, OR. with an ocean view for 2 nights, while I worked on the mural for their mud porch!  I brought my Dad along, who is a watercolor artist, so he could paint too!  It was great to have him there... good company and also another artistic eye to bounce things off of.  Love you Dad! (I know you're reading this.) At the end of the weekend, here's what it looked like:

BEFORE:

The approved digital collage/sketch done in photoshop.... 

And AFTER:

Painted shadows for all the objects for the beach...

REAL shells, driftwood, beach glass, agates glued onto the wall!!!

A few painted "shells" in the background to blend into the real ones glued on.

This one was really a lot of fun to do.  Not only was it fun to paint, but figuring out the 3-d and textural elements for the mural was exciting for me.  After sketching the design on the wall, I brushed a bunch of granular acrylic gel (basically just clear paint with sand and chunky stuff in it) onto the sand and beach area.  This stuff dried to a bumpy, sandy finish. Then I painted the sand colors over it, and added the shells and rocks and driftwood at the very end.  The mural is so much fun to touch!! Loving the idea of blending 2-d with 3-d.  

The vacation rental owners had a very positive reaction to seeing the mural. The honor and pleasure of turning someone's vision into reality, and transforming their space, is what gets me excited about painting murals for clients.  It can be really difficult to get inside a client's head, and try to filter their feelings, thoughts and words through my own brain, to still get an image they want in the end.  It's what unique, custom, tailored-to-you murals are all about - asking the right questions to find out what the client wants, and then giving it to them.

Dreams and Plans

I mentioned in my last post that I was recently interviewed by a UO Journalism student.  I thought I would share that interview here.  Click here to read the short article.   The pictures below are pictures that were taken of me to accompany the article. 

I've recently been contacting other mural artists that I've found online - those whose work I admire and who seemed successful in their fields.  I've had this list of questions for them, mostly about marketing and pricing, but also some about their career trajectories.  It's been really interesting to learn about these different artist's lives and how they got to where they are today.  No one had a straightforward path to follow.  It's been difficult trying to figure out the best way to make my dream job(s) happen in my own life.  It's not like my sister's career choice (physical therapy) where there is a more clear path set out for you. You go to school, you do your clinicals, you get a stable job.  Not that that path is any easier, because it's just as much if not more work than mine.  But from what I can tell, I've chosen a path that's shrouded in fog, not lit up by street lamps the whole way.  I've been reaching out to others, and doing tons of research on the internet about mural-ing for home and business and even the public art world.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, but what I want is this: 

To make a decent enough living to support myself and children someday by having a career that is half made up of teaching art residencies in K-12 schools, and half made up of making murals for clients.  

That is what I want.  I know without a doubt that both of those parts do in fact make me extremely happy.  I know everyone says that they don't care about being rich, they just want to be happy.  That's true for me, too.  I would rather do something that makes me extremely happy for 8 hours a day and come home to a modest home and modest "things", than do something that makes me feel like a numb zombie for 8 hours and come home to a ton of nice crap in a big, dreamy house.  It just makes more logical sense to me, to spend your work life happy, rather than working hard and hating it so you can be happy in your down time.  That's the goal and I'm working hard to achieve it.  If I fail, at least I'll know that I gave it a shot, and then will have to look for something else that might make me moderately happy instead. ;) 

This post is turning super "journal entry", so I'm going to end it here.  But I will say that I believe there is something to be gained by writing down and telling others about your dreams and plans.  Do it.  Tell someone your dreams.

working away on a painting in my studio

my "studio"

Admiring the kid's work at Walterville Elementary

Newest work out of the studio

Sneak Peek: A Tree of Life Mural

My current work in progress is a gigantic "tree of life" in a guest bedroom.  I'm loving working with the style and colors of this piece!  I think my favorite part of this mural is the fact that it's going to be a 3-d/mixed media mural when it's all finished!  In between the branches and flowers of this tree will be framed old black and white family photos!  I can't wait to show you how this looks when it's all painted and the photos go up.  How would YOU spice up a family photo wall?

The "tree of life" is ubiquitous and meaningful to cultures and religions all over the world.  I love all the different meanings.  Check it out:

"The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. It alludes to the interconnection of all life on our planet and serves as a metaphor for common descent in theevolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.^[1]

The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica,^[2] and are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree."

(Wikipedia)