Italian Mural

Here is the mural I painted recently. Unlike the last two murals that were painted on a smooth surface, this mural was painted on a wall that had a knock down surface. This texture is similar to Spanish-style stucco. It is a little harder to paint detail work, however I was in luck that the finished look was to have a very painterly style. The subject did not have very much detail so right after I chalked 1 foot square grids for an 4'x8' area, I proceeded to draw with a small brush. After drawing in the big shapes I dusted off the chalk grid as I painted in the same manner I use when painting outdoors "en plein air". I wanted the mural to fade out to the color of the wall so I feathered out the edges. Not all walls can be treated equal in the field of mural painting so muralists need to be prepared to paint on many types of surfaces. Now let's paint!

Here I snapped chalk lines every foot.

Here I drew the main shapes with a small brush.

Here I am filling in some minor details.

The finished mural.

New Years Eve

Just before Christmas I finished another wall mural that I will be posting up soon so stay tuned. I wanted to share with you my new years eve project. I was painting or should I say touching up our purple martin decoys. That's right I have a couple of fake purple martin birds perching on their houses. They were a little dull from being up there last year and needed a fresh coat of paint. Also, to add to the mix we play a cd in the back yard with the sounds of purple martins. My neighbors just love the sounds of purple martins on repeat. ;-) I am trying to raise the odds of attracting martins this spring. I sure hope this is the year, and trust me if we don't succeed it's not for lack of trying. Keep your fingers crossed.

Purple Martin decoy.

Besides having a passion for drawing, painting, and photography; I also have a passion for playing an acoustic guitar. I spent new years eve with my wife Terry and playing the guitar with my friend The Legendary Barbara Beam www.barbarabeam.com

Well most of the time I was trying to keep up with her, but all in all we had a good time. It was fun playing next to a warm heater surrounded by X-Mas lights that made the whole evening special. Happy New Years!

Having fun strumming.

Wildlife Habitat

It is known that bats tend to migrate south for the winter and return to their roosts during the spring season. My wife and I are so excited to know that more than half of our colony of bats decided to stay in their bat house for the winter this year. They are officially in hibernation mode. I took a sneak peek early one morning, around 6 am with a flash light. This is something I would not recommend due to possibly disturbing them during their nap, however I just had to know if they migrated or not. It's going to be a good year for bats next spring. Now if only I could get those purple martins to occupy their houses this spring. My wife and I would have fulfilled our backyard wildlife habitat goal. :-)

Our bat houses where approx. 200 bats roosted last summer.

Vacancy!

Belleview Art Festival

The Belleview Art Club held a Belleview Art Festival on Nov. 13th around Lake Lillian Park. Sorry for the late post. It was a beautiful cool, sunny Saturday. The festival had local artist from around Marion County, food vendors, music played by an orchestra and raffle tickets for art items were sold during the event. I set up my small tent with my portable display easels and I had a browse box with small matted prints and note cards on sale. It was good to have people stop by my tent to see my plein air paintings and to discuss the process of painting. I was also very happy to have taken 1st place for one of my paintings during this event. Now that the winter is here I am indoors working on another wall mural. I will post the mural project once I have painted the last brush stroke. Happy Holidays!