Painting a Mural for a Church

I started painting the mural at the tomb, but ran out of Payne’s gray and had to wait, frustrated, for my paint order to arrive. My sister Judy came to help me paint and we had some "debate" over a few things, including the sky color which I wasn’t satisfied with. But in the end we were both on the same page and worked well together.

I initially painted the tomb opening too large for the stone (Judy brought that to my attention!) and reduced it down to fit the stone, which made it look better. But I wasn’t happy with my initial painting of the olive tree and reworked it a few times.

When I was painting I had to frequently back up to check out the proportions, color and the composition. This is very important in painting a large space, and the mural being high up makes it even more important because from looking at eye level something would seem fine, but when I got off the scaffolds it wouldn't. The colors were also exaggerated to make them visible down on floor level.

I found myself getting anxious to finish as people kept wanting to have a peak but I didn’t want anyone to see until it was finished (or rather any comments on the work in progress). When I'd finished painting for the day, I covered the mural with a cloth.

The final few days I painted alone as Judy had another commitment, but I promised to wait on varnishing the mural until she returned and we’d done a final critique of it together.