Mural planning

For the mural layout I was thinking about last week I'm going to prime the walls and then block them out into framed sections.
Here's the hallway I have in mind. (Please excuse the clothing etc. We're in the process of setting up our "Artful Boutique" store in the gallery.

Once I've cleared the hallway and primed the wall I'll paint on the frames on and then when the whole group gets together we can each play in side the frames.

Kind of like the frames on these Mucha pieces:

Here's my doodle on the thought:

 

This is going to take some time to put together, so I'll start chipping away at it.

Step one. Go buy Kilz paint.

Last winter we had a little water damage becaus eof melting ice dams on the roof, so Kilz will be needed to really prep the wall.

The first "Art and Chill night" (does that work as a name?) will be on December 30th and that will probably be more of a "bring what you're working on and let's be artsy in a group" thing.

Either way. Progress!

Deck the Halls with Booze and Painting

The world is a great big ball o' stress right now.

Holidays, money, no sunlight and cold weather encroaching (for those of us north of the equator that is), and I'm seriously feeling it.

I know my friends and family are too so I've been planning on starting up an informal art night at the MAC650 Gallery in Middletown.  (Still trying to come up with a catchy name, let me know if you think of one.)

And to reeeaally kick it off?

I want to host:

Deck the Halls with Booze and Painting

Hehe. :-)

BYOB/snacks and and folks can join me painting a new mural on the walls in the hallways of NEAC. In the process I can help people learn some scenic painting techniques like, how to best hold your brush so you have great control and your arms don't tire as quickly.

I could even pre-plan the mural so that the various parts of it will need different techniques to be used.

I can teach things like

• how to paint a crisp clean line without painter's tape
• how to do paint wood grain
• how to paint shadows and highlights that really make the image pop.

Those should all probably turn into blog posts one of these days.

So, to prep for this endeavor I need to figure out a few details.

Drink and Mural Materials:

• Paint
• Brushes
• Paper Towels
• Water
• Cups or Buckets
• Drop Cloth
• Rags
• ladder
• step stool
• cardboard

Things to do before the day

• Pick a wall and prime it
• sketch out the groundwork for the mural
• Invite people (lol, that's an easy one for me to forget...)

So now there's the question of, what should the guiding idea for the mural be?

Normally when I attack the hallways with paint, I just kind of doodle on the wall and call it a painting, but it would be nice for this one to have at least a little planning behind it this time.

Hmm... here's my Pintrest board of inspiration:

Follow Jeanette's board Mural Thoughts on Pinterest.

 What do you think? Want to come paint with me?

How to paint slush cast latex

I have a stack of prosthetic pieces now waiting for me to bring them to life with paint but I've never actually worked with slush cast latex before... So, research time!!

*insert clicky clack noises and inspirational research music here* 

*ding!*

Pax Paint

translucent setting powder

Apparently the best way to paint slush cast latex is with pax paint. But the paint will stay tacky/sticky afterwards, so you have to make sure you set it with translucent powder after you're done. I found FX Warehouse to have the paint I'm looking for in stock, and the translucent powder you can get at pretty much any  make-up store. I'll probably hit up Ultra for mine. Oh, and "setting with powder" simply means to poof some powder on top of the paint job.




Ok great, now we know what we need, but how do we use it? That's where good old YouTube comes in. Here are the most informative videos I was able to find on the subject:

Now if I were cool I would own an airbrush machine and compressor, but I'm not. So I'll have to do this the good old fashioned way... with paint brushes.

There was a really cool tutorial that I may try, since it uses latex and acrylic paints instead of pax paint. I love cheaper options!

I hope you guys found this information as useful as I did, but if you happen to know of some more informative resources, please let me know! I'll add people's suggestions to the post.

A very art-filled night

It began with returning home to meet my neighbors having dinner on the back patio. I joined them and then Erika and I ended up painting a mural in the hallway. Then, instead of going to sleep like I should have, I stayed up for a couple more hours and continued to paint. The following images are from my frenzied night of impromptu art.