When I began painting murals on a commercial basis. I was almost primitive in my style. I usually drew the images up free hand and occasionally used an overhead projector if it was available. This is still my preferred method and I still love the spontaneity of free hand and action painting. One can always feel the influence of Jackson Pollock on my work and I love big, bright, bold, primary colours or at least to keep within the range of secondary mixtures.
However necessity means that as artists and practitioners we move on. I have sought out constructive change for reasons concerning time, finance and the need to fit the feel of the community for which I work and whose ideas I am trying to develop and reflect. This has meant that I have had to adopt different techniques and learn to adapt. This can mean adapting style and choice of materials and to endeavour to produce the desired result within sometimes a quite frenetic time frame. At other times I have had to slow down and become more studious and formulaic. Trompe L'oeil is a way of painting and an approach, which I have not yet integrated into my personality. But I sporadically adopt some of the effects of the style as needs be. This requires doing the appropriate research and asking and receiving generous and valuable assistance from colleagues and mentors and teachers whose work is readily available on web sites such as Faux Like A Pro and Virtually Gardening's Home and Garden Magazine .
Part of this record keeping activity revolves around taking photos and making notes at each stage of the mural creation process. The record keeping activity engenders an impetus of its own dialectic.
I will describe the stages of this impetous as follows:
Information CollectionThis stage consists of talking, listening, visual imaging, talking, more listening, more visual imaging and more talking. The artist will perhaps video, tape record or take extensive notes about what the employer/community wants and is trying to achieve. There will be notes scribbles, jottings, verbal anecdotes, collective brainstorming, history, poetry, photos of the history of the area or of aspects of the area that require underscoring now. A good storage system for this amazingly bulky collection of material is essential and perhaps, scanning, digital recording and storage on CD, is the easiest most cost effective method. Although other suggestions from readers about how they approach this task are always welcome.
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