A beautiful day in the neighborhood!

It's a beautiful day today and finally a little cool. I should be working on this mural at the Cynthia Mitchel Pavillion here in The Woodlands, but it is Monday and I have so much other catching up stuff to do today. I will probably go tomorrow morning. These are some of the "hometown heroes" and this particular photo shows the Mitchels themselves. It is a big project and I have two more in this line that are unfinished and then they are also adding two more that I haven't even gotten the photos for yet. There are also some private portraits that are going up on the other end that I have only gotten the white base painted for. I will try to find a photo of that.

Here is a photo of one of the private portraits in the transfer stage. I use clear plastic to lay over the original drawing and then trace with permenant marker. I tape this up and then slip some transfer paper behind it and trace it off. The clear plastic has been a real breakthrough because it is so much easier to place the new figures between others that have already been done.

After I trace them on the wall, I then fill in the outline with geso for several coats sanding in between coats to get a nice smooth surface to paint on. This also covers the dark underlying green. When that's done I can then easily put the clear plastic tracing back up and align it and trace off the details to begin the portrait.

Here is a view of the Hometown heros for this year in the geso stage. The head sizes on those are 3 inches. The closest people in the front in white shirts with flags are 7 inch heads. The Home town heros are high enough up that I have to use a stepstool ladder to stand on to paint them.