A Mural with Class

[TNardone]

Hi sherry,

Wow, what a lot of detail in your work! Love the Past panel, I can see the bell bottoms on the 70's group! Came out amazing, I am sure the students at the school love it!

Ron-I too was unaware of your illness and I am happy to see that you are doing what you love now and getting paid for it as well. Its amazing how much stress can take it's toll on the body. I hope its in remission now.

Theresa

[Laughlines]

Theresa: I know that Ron has a lot of support here, well deserved, and my mouth dropped open again with some of his work on the fine arts page...amazing talent and insight.

Yes, lots of details, and work, and time spent on this mural. I guess when the details overide the message...I may reconsider advice that local yokels suggested to me...keep it simple, sttttttttoooooooooopud. But, as I have already expressed in this thread:

I'm teaching myself to paint and want to challenge myself to fall over greater hurdles.

It's my recreation. May not be a mural that would draw positive remarks from the educated artisan art critics, and it may not be the mural that will draw more interest in people wanting to hire me...kind of scary to have something like that in the living room...but it sure beats walking around in the house all day, picking up popcorn kernels and dirty socks from under the cushions.

And, I'm just plain stoopud for thinking I can make myself work up to the level that most of you are already at for the past 10 to 20 years, and actually receivng a worthy income from hordes of interested clients. Har har ha! I'm just frustrated at myself and the poor timing...and tired of being frustrated...and tired of whining about being frustrated...and...er, oh!

But, *sigh*...who cares!!! In short, the world is going nutz...art is very limited in correcting what and where the real problems are...in fact, I know that art is very expendable. Geez, there must be something of worth that an artistic-crazy individual can do besides leaving carbon footprints and old paints behind for the next generation to inherit!

Never stub your toe before you type a reply on this forum, folks! LOL!

Sherry

[alancarroll]

Sherry; gorgeous mural! The time spent researching and preparing must have been a huge part of this. The time you spent is apparent and evidently worth it. Congratulations! Thank you for posting detail shots too. I always love seeing work up close. You're an inspiration.

[southpawsue]

Sherry, Wow girl that must have been lots of research & drawings, color studies etc. Well done and I'm sure lot's of peeps are happy!! Keep it goin on

[Laughlines]

Alan & Sue: Thank you for your warm compliments! For the average person, research isn't the best part of a job, but I actually enjoyed looking through all those old, crusty yearbooks, and digging around to see what I could come up with. There were three major points that the mural was supposed to illustrate, and each section was labeled in that manner. Otherwise, I was free to come up with whatever presentation I wanted to, within reason of course! As far as I know, the faculty and students enjoyed the results. It was my intention to come up with my own resources without imitating someone else's style.

I have been frustrated by a problem that somehow arose as to the mounting of the mural to the wall. For some reason, the center section started bowing in the middle, and a quick call from the school brought me there to look dumbfounded at it. It's not severe, but it could become a problem if it continues to progress. What we decided to do was to take off the bottom screws and allow the weight of the boards to straighten it out, and then reapply the screws within slots so that there is a little give to it. Is there anyone out there that had similar problems with something like this? This is when the word "Amatuer" or, "Not a carpenter", comes to mind. (There are boards reinforcing all edges, and both sides were primed twice over with exterior primer, and both sides received two coats of exterior quality varnish after painting was done). If it keeps bowing, I will probably have to bow out of using this method for murals.

Sherry

[chris deal artist]

love the tigers! awesome! my patience wouldve worn out and about half of those kids would have dots for eyes and scribbles for hair.

[Jeanne S]

I lllllllllllllove it! so much detail... great job, how nice for the school to have that!!!!

[Elena]

[Laughlines]

First of all, thank you for the uplifting remarks and that you appreciate the work and time involved with this mural. I must confess that I have to get used to the idea that I will just paint for myself most of the time. I, and (a much better) artist paired together and bid on a job that required a LOT of detail work for a local restaurant that would have to work out into a collage-type of composition. Since this was the only job for miles around, we were excited but cautious. We didn't want to scare him away with anything higher than a $10,500 bid that we both had to share, for an estimated month's worth of work, on an exterior unprimed brick building with the dimensions of the mural 20' high and 60' across...no, we couldn't get too exciting charging the poor man, because we wanted and NEEDED the job, at least to generate interest and announce that we have ARRIVED. Well, for one month's work at $5,250...including priming and all paint and primer cost, we didn't get the job. Someone managed to outbid us and THEY got the job. Soooooooo, this is the reason for my doldrums. Well, how tiresome is that. I had to cry a little, and then move on. I have to, or I'll bore people to tears about my tales of woe! There are so many more people just barely putting food on the table, worrying about paying the bills, so in that way, I've been pretty self-centered, and I apologize. I will accept the fact that I better just take each day as it comes. Thanks for listening.

Sherry...still alive and loving life!

[Corrado]

WOW! I don't know how I missed this one, I know its old, but this is AMAZING WORK!

I LOVE this mural! Also love the graduating Tiger mascot!!

[strongv]

I think I love the Graduating Tiger best!!!


Another great concept! Yeah! Thanks for sharing this with us!