How hot?  Well the thermometer said 93 degrees, but the heat coming off the mural wall felt closer to 425 degrees (tater-tot-hot)… give or take…

The point I am trying to make is – it’s hot and I don’t even care because I am so happy to be painting this mural!!  So first thing this morning (about 7am) I climbed up on the rental 25 foot 4 wheel drive scissor lift (my new favorite toy), jacked it up to the 22 foot mark and prepared to make the first official brush stroke of the epic Niwot Mural, and there, right on the spot I was going to paint, was a little red lady bug!  I took it as a wonderful omen, and took a picture of her.  And she lived up to my expectations because it was a great day painting!  Even though the temperature was hot, a thunderstorm rolled through this afternoon and shaded me and the wall all afternoon before it finally started raining and I had to pack it up.  Normally the sun will be hitting the wall by about 2pm but I was painting today until after 7pm.  I am planning to start painting around 6am and avoid the heat of the day… but I lady-bug-lucked out today and got in about 11 hours.  It was hard to put the brush down and walk away, but I have to save some strength for tomorrow, and the next 60 or so tomorrows after that…

I had been feeling challenged about creating a mural on a wall of 160 feet of corrugated metal.  So today I tried to work a few different techniques to work with the corrugation, around the 4″ seams, across the bolts.  Finally I just decided to treat these uneven, annoying ripples the same way I treat cellulite or the phone bill, and just ignore it altogether.

I made a new friend today – Quentin Young, the Arts Writer for the Longmont Times Call.  He came out to see what all the fuss is about with this crazy mural, and he is going to write about Niwot’s latest art adventure.  Yay!

Now I am ready for some sweet dreams before my next day of muralisciousness.  I hope my littlest lady bug friend has sweet dreams too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 at 8:58 am and is filed under Mural Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.