When I had the Firehouse studio open for the South Park Walkabout back on October 3, I met a lot of interesting people and answered a lot of questions.

One I remember best is the girl who asked me, looking at the mural laid out on the floor, “How do you see the the whole picture?”

I think she meant something like “how do you see this whole process develop before you start, when nothing exists yet?”, understanding that some kind of guiding vision is required to bring a project like this to fruition, even if she couldn’t articulate it that clearly. (She seemed smart enough, but alcohol does alter our ability to communicate….)

Anyway, the answer is not “Because I’m a great artist” or even “Because I’ve done it before”, even though this second idea is closer to the mark than the first. All of my projects are so different, you can’t really say I’ve done any of them before.

What you can say accurately (I think) is that I’ve developed a process through doing lots of related project, and that by relying on the rigors of the process, I’m pretty confident that I can deliver the relatively unknown, even in the face of a potential client’s skeptical questions.

So this post is part summary of the mural project I’ve been documenting on this blog for the last six weeks and part illustrated explication of the process– so here we go.

One thing all of my different mural and faux painting projects do have in common is that they start with an idea, usually hatched by the client or the client’s design team, not me. My design services are the bridge to reality: how to develop an idea, no matter how wild or improbable it might seem at the outset, into a tangible possibility with a realistic plan of action to achieve.

In this case, the client had the idea to improve the white vertical blinds covering the spectacular views over downtown San Diego at night by painting them with the view itself– with some improvements. Here’s the job “site”: two 15′ sections of window creating one huge panaronama.

The client went even further in having a photographer (in this case my friend, Mike Brown) shoot the views from his building as a visual reference for what he wanted painted, and having the photos shot on a night when even the sky was how he wanted it in the final painting.

So my design of the mural started by pasting up a collage of Mike’s photos for each of the two windows to use as a reference and initial composition for the mural:

When I translate this approved composition into a scale drawing that corresponds to the actual dimensions of the site, the plan of painting action starts to take shape.

Once these line drawings were approved by the client, I expanded them to full size (more on that in future posts) and transferred them to the blinds for painting (the blinds were de-installed and “stretched” on the floor of the studio). The finished painted mural before installation:

So that’s one way in which I “see the big picture” when it doesn’t even exist yet, and know that I can bring into being from just an idea. Obviously, the client made this project pretty easy by knowing exactly what he wanted, and Mike made it easy with his terrific photography.

(I have more process pics an some video from this projectI’m working with right now and will publish soon.)

I waded through some more photos of the mural project this morning here in Las Vegas hotel room before hitting the road again and found some fun detail shots that give a good idea of both how much detail I actually put in this mural and how much extra attention was required to make clean beautiful marks on this challenging surface ( I have some more technical type pics on the blinds themselves that I’ll write about when I’m ready to relive that part– for now, I’d rather concentrate on the finished product, which makes the painting process look relatively easy and painles!)

San Diego federal buildings on left mural panel

Hyatt buildings with Coronado Island and Bridge behind

Electra residential building with Pt.Loma & Coronado in the background, as well as one of all time favorite sky painting moments

Broadway with NBC and AT&T buildings on the left mural panel

Cleaned up the studio today for an impromptu opening tonight during the South Park Walkabout– if you’re in San Diego, head over and stop in the big open doors on 30th and Juniper near the corner with the musicians under the awning. Get a one time only look at the San Diego cityscape mural I’ve been creating on 30 feet of vertical blinds.

san diego cityscape mural on vertical blinds

My friend photographer Mike Brown will be screening the first cut of the time lapse video he has been shooting the last week documenting my progress painting the mural. If you can’t make it, here’s a couple mural process shots of mine. I’ll post a link to Mike’s videos when they’re uploaded.

mural painting process pictures

masking down on finished sky painting

back at the beginning of architectural drawing for San Diego city mural

laying down the mural drawing

So after a sunny early autumn blur back to Pittsburgh– unloading the truck (finally!), moving stuff around with Heather in the new place, meeting new friends and neighbors Scott and Winfrey, Yolanda and Charlie, Tommy and Jennifer and all of their kids and dogs (our neighborhood, Point Breeze, rules!) and taking Hunter to and from school today — I’m back on the plane to San Diego.

This plane goes through Denver, making three different in-between airports in the last week (Atlanta & Charlotte first) while juggling new business venture, new painting project, new city, new house in Pittsburgh, new temporary arrangements in San Diego– who knew even I could cram this much stuff into one month and its not even the 15th yet, especially considering I left San Diego for Pittsburgh in Heather’s car on September 1st!

Anyway, the highlight of the mural project prep last week in SD was my Friday night visit to the top of 501 West Broadway with photographer Mike Brown to research the missing views of the cityscape mural– “missing” insofar as the client wants to replace a few skyscrapers with more ocean, marina and sky.

Some of these aren’t so inspiring, but its what’s being hidden by the buildings to be removed, so Mike’s super high resolution pix and mighty zoom lens make them just what I needed.

I posted a view of these pix in real time from the roof (because the evening was too beautiful not to!) with my iPhone to Twitter and beyond, so Mike shot my portrait last thing, with my face actually lit by the phone.

What a difference ten years makes– no one seemed concerned about two artists with cameras wanting to be on the top of one of the tallest building in downtown San Diego on the ten year anniversary of 9/11.

I’ll post drafts of the revised mural drawings with all this new detail as soon as they are ready!

I’m on the road with Heather’s Subaru full of stuff, Raul and myself headed to Pittsburgh and our new set-up there. Heather and the kids flew ahead and signed the lease on our new place while spending a few days with the McGinleys, our cousins in Point Breeze. We’re very fortunate to be living within walking distance of supportive extended family!

Ironically, just as we were packing the last boxes and preparing for the moving truck last week, I landed a really cool trompe l’oeil mural project in San Diego, so I’ll be flying right back next week to paint the new project and also finish the Cafe Mundo mural I’ve written about here.

Because I’m in a hurry to get out of my motel here in Albuquerque and go have coffee with an old friend, no new mural pictures today, but I have a bunch to get of the camera, so check back soon.

If I missed you in the rush of leaving San Diego, hit me up (mobile phone and email remain the same) and we can get together later this month when I’m back.

I’ve been keeping track of the mural project at Cafe Mundo here in Banker’s Hill with my iPhone and some instant real time publishing through my pages on Facebook and Twitter, so I thought I’d catch up some our progress here before heading over to for this morning’s session.

I’ve been very pleased to work with artist Jessica Siemens, who you may remember I mentored earlier this spring in marketing her excellent work via blogging and social media on the way to her first “art fair” appearance in April at Little Italy’s ArtWalk. (For more detail on that, search for articles on Jessica over on the San Diego Finishing School site.)

Anyway, we’ve been having a blast getting to paint together (rather than working on marketing paintings together:) and we’ve been accompanied off and on by my babies, Hunter (4) and Logan (2)– no, they don’t have their own websites yet– so I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Cafe Mundo mural progress

Cafe Mundo mural painting

Mural details

Jessica paints, Hunter and Logan supervise!

Hunter practices his craft