One Way to Get Your Art Up on a Wall

I've taken time off from the table project for the past few days to deal with another ongoing project.  (until I get the table leg hardware, there is very little I can do)  About a month ago the Belmar Arts Council announced a new project, a mural to be painted on the face of the town's train station.  Considering my involvement with murals, naturally I was recruited to produce a design proposal.  Sweetening the deal is a cash prize for the winning design.  On the negative side, the building has a very odd proportion compared to traditional painting composition (8' tall by about 85' long, a 1:10 ratio), and the surface is mostly grooved wood panels, with some stucco, and the space includes several doors, windows, and signs that have to be left in place, unchanged.  The topic:  Belmar, of course.

I put in a bit of time thinking about this project, doing research (books, internet), taking photos, making sketches.  I had plenty of ideas of what might be part of it, but whenever I sat down to to try to put something together and looked at that surface, I would get discouraged.  With the deadline less than a week away, very few proposals had been turned in, and they continued to press me for something.  So the past few days I have put in a lot of hours, eventually working up a basic layout, then producing a colored (watercolor over pencil and ink lines) version of the full composition.  At a scale of a half inch of drawing equalling one foot of building, it was still almost 40" long.  If this was a woodcut project, I'd probably want to spend a few more weeks just working out the composition, and take a few passes at the color choices.  But it's not, and I had a deadline.  At least I got it to the point where I don't mind having my name on it, and if my design is chosen, I will be able to make adjustments before it starts going up on the wall.

I did take photos of my proposal in progress, but I think I'm going to hold off on posting them until after the committee makes their decision.  Win or lose, I'll put up my concept and discuss why I did what I did.  Meanwhile, tomorrow I go back to working on the tables.