Back to school – part 2 | Jana R. Johnson, Artist

Back to school – part 2

Spring Break is over, and we finished the sign/mural at West Albany on Saturday afternoon. Several days we worked until 9:00 or even 10:00 one evening to make sure we’d be finished in time.

This shows the obstacles Brad had to work around while painting some of the letters.

Here, I’m beginning to fill in the medium gray color of the largest bulldog.

Brad was working on the gold gradients within each letter. He used 5 different values of the gold and 2 brushes. I was kind of glad we were on opposite sides of the gym, since as he’d bound up or down the scaffoldings, he’d occasionally make the gym floor shake, which would cause my lift to sway! I was having enough trouble keeping my painted lines smooth without any extra motion to fight.

At the end of each day, we had to wash out our brushes thoroughly since we were using oils. We had a pretty nifty set up on a table that was on a rolling cart, so we could move it from one end of the gym to the other as needed.

Woo hoo! I was finished with this bulldog! Notice the red gloves? The gym was freezing cold, and that metal lift was icy! I wore a glove on my left hand the whole time I was working after the first couple of days. When I’d take a break, I’d put the 2nd glove on along with my down jacket. Brad kept warm climbing up and down the scaffoldings, but with the push-button lift, I’d stand hours without moving while raising and lowering the lift to reach each area. I did get a lot of exercise dragging the lift across the gym. Luckily Brad usually helped out when I needed to traverse the length!

Here I was painting in the light gray drop shadow.

The view from Brad’s scaffolding.

This bulldog is completely finished – yay!

Here’s Brad swinging a curve with his brush and his steady hand!

Now he’s painting a pinstripe within each letter. He glued a rubber strip to the back of his yardstick, then used it as a guide for the straight lines while brushing on the stripe. Notice the textured wall – one of the many challenges we dealt with.