Good question, Jerry. This project is funded by the City's Art in Public Places. The City Council was very excited after the Head West Walldog project and wanted to add more.
This is the first addition, and a lot of time has been spent meeting with the building owner ( many occassions to acquire consent), the AiPP committee and finally a City Council meeting.
Plus the research time including meeting with the local historian, scanning through several binders of old photos, scanning a couple dozen of those photos and finally selcecting the pieces that fit.
I would say that total time has been at the least 30 hours.
The original 'draft' concept came in about 3 hours. Then reworking and choosing various elemnets I wanted to use, or thought might fit, another 6 hours.
(I forgot to mention, I purchased several rolls of paper at a local estate sale, that is what was used for the cut and paste concept I used to trace. The rolls were 18" x 80' Glendale shelf and lining or general use paper,
including one roll of MyLady white bond. I figured it be good for pattern paper also. seven rolls for a dollar)
I believe I have about 20-24 hours in the pen and ink layout on tracing paper.
The compensation for the job is worth the time I'll be spending on this project, from drawing board to site cleanup.
Now, it's time to transfer the pen and ink work to the watercolour paper. I'll be using Arches 260lb cold press, heavy enough not to need stretching.
The size is 26" x 41", sometimes referred to as 'elephant ear'. Here you see the wc paper mounted to a piece of 1/2" black gatorfaom, 28x44,
with the tracing paper pen and ink layout hinged on top of the wc paper.
The extra paper below the drawing will be useful for color samples and techique tests.
(The watercolour painting will be auction off after the completed mural.)
Next, I pull out my roll of blue Saral wax free paper and slide a piece between the papers, and I'm ready to begin the transfer process.
I'm pretty excited about the paints I decided to use on the wall...
yesterday, I stopped in the local Benjamin Moore paint store and they gave me a fan deck and swatch books of BM's newest line of exterior paint called Benjamin Moore Aura.
It cost a little more than their other high quality line but the coverage is less... some darks required in the past 3 coats, now only two and it is self priming!
The colors, called "affinity colors", are very subdued, muddy or historic looking.. very much remind me of the Keim color spectrum.
I think I found my 'general' color palette.
That's enough for now, back to the drawing board, its gettin late!