Friday, June 17, 2011

More from Garin Baker on mural painting

Here is another post written by Garin Baker about the process of creating a big mural. Thanks Garin for all your efforts to show us this and explain it.

Amazing site along the banks of the Hudson River about 60 miles north of New York City Is where the fun all happened.

We started with the faux stone work accomplished in a fast and amazingly easy technique.
A turpentine wash of what ever color you pick on you palette mixed with it complimentary color varying the degrees of warm and cool temperature is applied to an area a wide as you can reach
from left to right from top to bottom letting the paint run down creating basically an abstraction of mess and drips. Just a bit of time for the turpentine to evaporate and just the pigment is left for you to work into making sure not to over brush it. Then cut in with a gray to white mortar lines varying you brush thickness. Think organic shapes working you negative space to create interesting stone and rock shapes. Lay in some deep cool shadows on the bottom of the stones as they appear and some high lights and variate some middle tones on top... play play play. keep it loose, and keep moving.


Wonderful Nancy Stonecypher muralist and faux finisher picked up the technique in no time flat Awesome!

Natalia Zadnovskia expressionist and theatre designer artist from Russia via Brooklyn, mastered the technique and could compete a 20 ft square section every day. Amazing to watch her.


At night we used a digital projector and lap top with our previously completed compositionally approved designs and projected the archway areas onto the wall, measured and scaled so as to
not deviate from the overall schematic. One of my past students at School of Visual Arts In NYC whom is a colleague and amazing painter in his own right David Penna checks and lets us know all
systems are good.


Then we with a very thinned out turpentine tone drew out the projected image on the wall. No need to draw to much since were just trying to get accurate placement and defining where the large lights and shadows are located. Figures where drawn out by me since I was primarily responsible for their accuracy and needed to draw them out with just the right indications since everyone depicted
in the Mural is from Newburgh and it was important that they would recognize themselves.



Young paid apprentice Artist Bryan Gugllielmi proved invaluable on this project and I could not have completed it without him.
He was my primary blocker in and lead me from left to right blocking in large masses of freehand mixed colors as I followed tightening and resolving
the form and accuracy. He's been painting from life in my studio since he was sixteen when his mother brought him by saying he was getting into trouble
at school and needed some direction. Bryan is now a muralist with Mural Arts in Philadelphia as well as working on his own paintings after completing his degree
a few years ago at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Palette.

20 comments:

billspaintingmn said...

Thank you Garin for posting this! Thank you Stape for giving a focus on Garin!

It just stires the imagination. Talk about team work and dedication
to do all this.

barbara b. land of boz said...

Thank you Garin for sharing your methods for painting murals. It is an amazing piece.

Brady said...

The Technique on the rocks certainly works!

colleen said...

so fantastic to be able to peer over your shoulder this way, and my oh my what a project!

Johan said...

Looks like some amazing achievements are being reached by a wonderful team!
Thanks for sharing, so inspiring!

Libby Fife said...

This is really a glimpse in to something that I might never have known about so thank you. I guess I won't complain anymore about doing a "larger" canvas!

PS-The story of the young man towards the end of the post was really wonderful. Glad that Garin included that.

Amy said...

WOW! again. So very sad to think the lowlife contractor who did the wall prep sabotaged all the extremely amazing talents of all the artists who worked on the project, not to mention the people who invested their time and money. Thanks for the posts! I am continually in awe of all the information I have yet to absorb!!

Mary Byrom said...

Garin, this is great to see a small bit of your long process. Your work is fabulous! Wish you did a blog on your projects. Thanks Stapleton for sharing Garin with us.

Garin Baker said...

Thanks Stape for all you kindness and support.
Rare these days, so it's sincerely appreciated. Something good is coming your way for sure!
If any of your followers are interested,
my New Blog inspired by Stape is @ http://garinbakerart.blogspot.com/
Thanks Man!

jimserrettstudio said...

When I first saw this post I cringed.

In the late 90s a large group of pictorial artists from the outdoor advertising industry
were displaced by large format printing. A lot of very talented and well trained
artists and illustrators, many of whom moved back into normal and traditional art venues for income.

Part of that industry fall out was a flood of these types of murals. From my home I can drive to three floodwalls with some type of civic/hometown mural. Ranging from amateur to professional in quality, the reason? This is actually very easy work to do, I did it for over twenty years and trained endless young artist to do the same.

What Mr. Baker has for him is he is a talented painter and using strong design.
This kind of work is really about concept and design, the actual execution of it
is pretty simplistic.

Stapleton Kearns said...

billspaintingmn;
Kind of like making a movie, maybe.
...............Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

barbara b. land of boz;
Final shots of that tonight.
............Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Brady;
They looks so real.
........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

colleen;
Bring a ladder.
.........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Johan Derycke;
You can tell they had a lot of fun.
..................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Libby Fife ;
Garin is a leader too.
..........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Amy;
The town made the mistake I thin k. Should have used a contractor who was straight.
...........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Mary Byrom ;
Garin is starting a blog. I will link to it in mt sidebar.
.........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Garin Baker;
See, I am wicked nice.
..............Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Jim Serrett ;
I have seen a lot of those. Particularly dislike the giant sea life. But I think these are of a higher order, or I wouldn't have featured them. Garin draws really well.
...............SATape