Almost Finished Painting the Emmaus Road Mural At Church

Friday I had a day off and so I spent a good part of it at my church where I worked on the mural of The Christ on the Emmaus Road. 

I filled in a few gaps and touched up a few areas. A couple of places that needed attention was on the outside edge of the painting were the doors were. I did not fill in the wall between the doors and the outside edge of the wall yet, so I spent a couple of hours building that scenery up.

The biggest and most exciting part was to work on the people that are center on the mural. The faces were something I wanted to get a good start on. The clothing was a problem since I was still working out a little of the composition and colors as I went along.

I have not used any black in the painting so far but have kept the colors bright and on a lighter hue. Now to give the portraiture some exceptional presence I will be mixing black into some of the colors in areas to give drama.

After about six hours I felt that things were well on the way and decided it was time to go home. You can see that I still have a lot of work to do, the hands and feet are not even blocked in. I need to do a lot of work on the clothing and the faces are only on the second step of several.

Second session on the portraiture of the Emmaus road  mural

I think I need another forty hours on the people and then another ten or so on the scripture. It looks like I will be getting done soon, but I said that about six months ago. 

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(c) Adron

Painting a Large Mural at Church, A Progress Report, The Emmaus Road

Last Sunday after church I was able to spend extra time painting the mural in the fellowship hall at South Columbia Baptist Church.

I used sponge technique to give texture and shape to the rocks in the foreground by dabbing a wet sponge lightly into a tray of paint and gently touching the surface over and over. I found that if I wet a natural sponge and wrung it out well then it would work better than a dry one. I had to rotate the sponge to avoid repeating patterns. I had to go over each area for each color so I sponged colors on the rocks for about four and a half hours.

The challenge is to make the foreground more brilliant and darker than the distant background and middle ground or else the project will look flat and lack depth. I would never use black but this time, I made an exception, and used a little black mixed with blue for the deepest shadows on the rocks.

I was going to use the sponge on the road but was not getting the effect I wanted, so I switched to a fan brush to sweep in the first layer of soil on the road. The household latex paint is not very blendable when it is on a surface and seems to pull badly but I think it actually enhances the effect of a dirt road. I will need to come back and give a few more layers and details such as rocks and ruts.

I began the first layer of dark green for the foreground undergrowth. I used a 1-inch nylon brush and stroked the paint in with a zig-zag pattern. Since the paint did not have a stain block in it the appearance is modeled which is what I wanted. I will come back next week and continue to build in leaves with lighter paint for the individual leaves. I hope we have the look of many thick bushes.

Progress on the mural of the Emmaus Road, South Columbia Baptist MD

It was a good seven hour work day since I worked on it from 1230 to about 730 PM. If I can get another 30 or 40 hours on this I think it will be done. More or less.


(c) Adron

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I hope you enjoy my art. 

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Adron 



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The Emmaus Road Mural Update

Our state had a blizzard so I was not able to go to the church and work on the mural like I wanted to. I have a full-time job and painting murals is a hobby, so if there is a choice between the two I have to consider the bills and mortgage first.

Now that the snow is shoveled out and starting to melt we were able to get to church. I stayed after and made it a work day.  I worked all afternoon and packed up when the youth group started to come in for their Sunday night activities.

I broke with the plan and painted in green. I say broke with the plan because I have been using a classic approach of painting from the background to the foreground, meaning the trees and bushes would be done after the hills behind them. But I was tired of working in earth-tones and chose to work in greens. In my vision, the village of Emmaus has green trees and bushes all over it. This may not be historically accurate but it gives me the ability to differentiate zones and planes of composition. I had under-painted the greens on a previous work day and decided to build up on that this time. I mixed lighter greens by adding yellows, reds, and white to bring down the value.  I started with a medium small brush to dab light dots in the bushes; but I was not happy and so went back to my liner brush and began to dab dots in the trees and bushes, like pointillism or impressionism.  I wanted to take down the value of the village to place it in the distance since distance makes things look pale but after several hours of struggling and thousands of dabs and dots later I felt it was a time for a break.

The landscape around the village was too deep and too brown, so I began to give it layers of paler brown tones. The brush of choice was the same signature or liner brush, it is a small thin long bristle brush and using it to drag back and forth I was able to give the village streets and surrounding areas a trampled look.

Now there was too much paint in my cup so I began to work an extra hour past what I intended and built up some of the hills off to the sides. The focus of the mural and of my efforts have been the center so I have neglected the far edges. I want every inch of this painting to be my best effort so I spent about an hour building up the textures of the hills on the far sides.

Progress on the Emmaus Road Mural at South Columbia Baptist 

Left hand corner progress on the Emmaus Road Mural At SCBC 

(c) Adron

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Painting the Emmaus Road Mural At South Columbia Baptist Church Update

Below are a couple of pictures of the progress on the mural in the fellowship hall at South Columbia Baptist Church, also known as the Emmaus Road Mural.

I am only able to work on weekends and after hours at my day job at the network, but it progresses slowly and steadily.  Last week I detailed the distant mountains, and brought the values (level of light) up somewhat to improve the effect of distance. I began to lay in the under-painting of the distant village.

This week I was only able to work a little due to work schedule, and family activities. Even so I was able to detail the near mountain range and lay in the under-painting of the middle ground. It doesn't sound like much but the area is the entire length of the wall.

Moving from the distant background to the middle ground surprised me because I discovered I needed to change the size of the brushes I was using.  Everybody knows things far away look smaller so I intuitively gravitated to small brushes even tiny signature brushes. To get the effect of nearness I felt the small brushes were pulling me to the same methods I used for the background, so I switched up to larger brushes. Even thought I was using similar wet into wet technique the larger brush forced a larger application which gave a look of nearness by comparison to the distant hills.  I will still need to return with the small brush next time to detail and add definition to some of near hills.

I am pleased with the progress considering the size and the amount of time I can work on it.

Emmaus Road Mural. Picture of left side showing progress.

Emmaus Road Mural. Picture of right side showing Progress

You can see the doors in the picture. So far everything has been higher than the doorjamb.

(c) Adron

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
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Adron


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Painting the Emmaus Road Mural Part 2

Since my last post I have had only two or three opportunities to work on the Emmaus Road Mural at South Columbia Baptist Church.  It is hard when you have a full time job, church comments and other responsibilities; but having begun I am determined to see it through no matter how long it takes.

Work on the clouds continues.  I want them to be colorful like sunset and full of motion like storm clouds.  I feel that I have to make the project with a lot of detail because that will cause people to linger and look at it and if they look long enough they will get the message of the project.   Even though I could have done a fast and simple rendition of clouds I am spending days giving them depth and beauty.

I am painting in latex wall paint and it is not an easy material to make art with.  I wanted to use watercolor technique on the clouds and build up layers of color so that it would look full and vibrant, but the paint dries too quickly for that approach; it is setting up in the cup before I get it on my brush.   I have tried keeping a bowl of water nearby so I can dip the brush in it and extend the paint. It seems to work and I am getting some of the effect of translucence that I wanted.

I have been going over the clouds to tone down some of the colors and lines.  I have done this with the thinned watery paint to allow the color below shows through a little, that way I have succeeded to get layers, and the watercolor effect I was hoping for.

My brush for this part was a liner, sometimes called a signature brush, I think it is a number 2; this is one of the smallest brushes on the market. This gets the detail I wanted.

So far I have spent over twenty hours on the clouds, and still feel that there is much more to be done.

The distant mountains were under-painted with a scrumble technique on a previous session.  I went back over them and added more muted hazy whites to give the effect of distance and to adjust the value.  I continue to be surprised at the nature of latex paint which dries darker than when it is applied.  Artist's oil paint and acrylic does not do this and watercolor usually becomes paler.  It is not a problem since I had planned to do several sessions with the mountains to get the effect of distant landscape, as well as the time of day- sunset.  For the mountains I continued to use a scrumbleing wet technique.

I began the next nearer range of mountains with a dark under-painting in brown, blue, and violet.  I will build up on this in the next session.

Progress on the Emmaus Road Mural distant mountains.

I invented a tool! I taped a paper cup to the top of the ladder and put the brushes in it so I would not have to go up and down every time I wanted a different brush.  Note the size of the brushes I am using. I do have bigger brushes but I really want to make this project honor God and be a blessing to others, so I am taking my time.

Low tech Paint Brush Holder for Painting Murals. 

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(c) Adron

Painting the Emmaus Road Mural At Church, part 1

I love to paint but have never settled on a style or medium, instead I have continued to explore art.  I have always been attracted to the challenge and power of murals. So when an opportunity comes to paint on the large scale I get excited.

There are several approaches to painting a mural, including:
     The traditional,
     The modern,
     The pure commercial,
     The experimental,
     And many more.

Painting the sky in the Emmaus Road Mural

Each artist brings their unique style, vision, talent and experiences to a project. Since I have been painting in many mediums like oil, acrylic and watercolor, not to mention mixed media I find painting a mural both challenging and easy.  I am able to use all the different methods to get the effects that I hope will make a remarkable project which will cause people to go "WOW."

In the first steps of this project I called upon years of sketching and design as I took two days to sketch the project on the wall. Of course that was after hours of working out the design on paper in small scale.

Painting the Clouds in the Emmaus Road Mural

This week I began the actual painting. Using a traditional philosophy I started at the far distance of the landscape and painted the sky.

For this part I used the techniques one uses for painting in acrylic, (the paint I am using is latex interior house paint).  Latex paint dries quicker than acrylic or oil, so I was fighting a constant frustration with the medium setting up before I was ready. Moving up from the horizon the colors darken and deepen since it is a scene at the end of the day. As I applied the paint I began to use a technique that was more like painting in oil by the impressionist; it was not my intention but a solution I was using to cope with the paint.

I began the clouds with an undercoating of white. When it dried I began to add soft colors of yellow, brown, rose and a pale burgundy, these colors were applied with a "scrumble technique;" that is an scrubbing and scribbling application with the brush. I was using it to force an irregular blend of colors. The clouds took hours to paint- so far.

I was out of time and spent a half hour to clean up and look at the work. When I return I will continue to add detail to the clouds.

Those who have seen the clouds say, "Oh they are done." I could move on from there and do other parts but I have a vision of Renaissance proportions and so will be spending many more hours on this that normal for a commercial mural.

(c) Adron

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 

If you want to see more just choose from the labels, or use the search box, or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron

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Church Mural Concept and Design.

I was asked to design and paint a mural for the nursery at my church. Anybody else would have done Noah's ark but I have to be different.

I chose a text from the Bible "And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward." Matthew 10:42. NASV.

I began to sketch ideas and play with concepts about two weeks ago. My idea was to put the verse on a scroll with a hand holding out a cup of water on one side of the verse and on the other side have a hand holding a baby bottle. This way the verse relates to the nursery environment. I sketched 18 different versions and parts of the scene.

BASIC SCENE
Since the mural will not cover the entire wall but only a portion I wanted to have it contained within some boundaries that would separate it from the wall. I chose to add wide and deep shadows around the scroll and fill them with reflective colors of lavender blue and purple.

FONT
I designed a font to use by looking at the ones I have on my software and decided what would complement the verse and keeping in mind the wall is brick so has a heavy texture which means I have to keep things simple. I picked bits and pieces out of several ones and feel I got something workable and not too generic.

NO MODELS
I could have hired or bothered friends to model the hands but didn't want to pay money and then find the project is not acceptable for the church, so I used printed, on line images and other reference material and then by combining a few got the hands believable. Once I had the hands designed everything else was easy.

DRAW and DRAW SOME MORE
I used a light box a lot and did a lot of copying of things to get the placement to where I am happy.

I spent over 20 hours on it.

Matthew 10:42 concept sketch for a mural in the church nursery.

I think I will edit the yellow to more of a tan / peach color.

(c) Adron

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
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If you want to see more just choose from the labels or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron


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