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.

left windows, vertical blind mural

right window, vertical blind mural

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:

left mural panel photo reference

right mural panel photo reference

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.

left mural panel scale design drawing

right mural panel scale design drawing

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:

finished left panel of mural on the floor of the studio

finished right panel of mural on the floor of the studio

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

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.