Week 10 Priming and Scaling Design

Welcome back to my blog!

Priming
The primer finally arrived, and I came to school early on Tuesday to begin priming. Although I knew it would be a tiring task, it exceeded my expectations. The bare concrete was very absorbent, and it took a lot of paint to cover the area. I was constantly switching between spreading the paint with the roller and filling in corners and gaps with a smaller brush. Doing so all while carrying around a heavy ladder. After 7 hours of work, I finally covered the wall in a single coat.

I came in again on Wednesday and gave the wall a second coat. This went faster but still took a while. Lianna stopped by to help out in filling in some of the holes with white paint. this task proved to be very tedious and never-ending. Despite the physical difficulty, it was a cool and rewarding experience to see the wall become fully covered.

Scaling the Design
I had planned to have the design laid out this week, but unfortunately, I ran into a hiccup. On Thursday, I came in, and I set up a projector. Over the weekend, I outlined my design and planned to project it in parts onto the wall—an efficient way to scale art up. I knew beforehand that people have had more success with this process at later hours in the day, as the projection is more visible. Unfortunately, the school isn’t open at dark hours, so I decided I could always hang up a tarp to block the sunlight if it became a problem. It was indeed a problem; a bigger issue was that the projector couldn’t sit back far enough in the four-square setup to cover the wall’s height.

I had to default to my plan B, creating a grid. Doodle grids are a common method used by both muralists and other artists to scale up their art. It consists of creating random doodles on the wall. Then, the artist would take a picture and digitally overlay an outline of the design on top. The points where the outline lines intersect with the doodles serve as a guide for the sketch on the wall. 

Thursday night, I went to pick up last-minute acrylic markers from the Blick store. The fine arts festival was the next day, and I decided to have it be an opportunity to get student participation. I left the wall open and invited both students and guests to participate. By the end, I got around 30 people to draw stuff on the wall, with many including their names. I made sure each student logged their name to keep track of community involvement.

Going Forward

Over the weekend, I plan to align the outline of my design over the doodle grid. I will then come in on Monday morning and start sketching the outline on the wall. 

Next week, I hope to have my outline on the wall completed and to have begun painting. I’m so excited to FINALLY begin putting up my art after weeks of wall prep.

Stay tuned!!!