Anatomy of a Mural – How to Paint a Bridge

Or – maybe how not to paint a bridge. It happens. I won’t say it happens every time I paint a mural, but it does happen.

Call it an ‘uh-oh’.

Or maybe ‘oops’.

Even, WTH do I do now?

Today it happened. With the bridge.

Day 3 of this mural started out fairly easy and routine – painting reeds, or tules.

A little brown . . .

A little taupe/tan . . .

. . . and you’ve got reeds. Client happy. Which makes me happy.

Bring on the bridge!

Client gave me this pic of a bridge she likes.

I gave Client this rendering which fit the dimensions of the the wall.

So far so good.

Okay, so I ‘blocked’ it out here. I had chalked it first, stepped back, thought it looked fine, so did a rough paint.

Notice any problem here?

{hint: look at the upper part of the bridge.}

No problem! Just add a couple more pylons, maybe some bushes, and it won’t look like the bridge’s entry had been gobbled up by the Lochness monster. Or something.

Two more pylons, some bushes on the shoreline and I’m thinking, This’ll work!

So I trudge onward and start painting the railings.

With the same brown and taupe as the reeds, by the way. Sorry, but I find things like that very cool – how the same colors look totally different just by painting in different directions.

Happy with the top part, I move on down to the lower bridge.

So far so good, right? Just add dark brown and some highlights . . .

. . . uh, no.

This is when the WTH? moment happened. Or, How-in-the-heck do I make the planks on the walkway of the bridge look right?

So I look at this again . . .

This doesn’t help because someone thought she’d be cute and paint a different perspective of this bridge.

But now it wasn’t so cute. I looked at this picture. Then I looked at the painting. Then the pic. Then the painting.

Then I walked outside, took a deep breath, and walked in with a big smile.

{You don’t want your clients to think you’ve messed their wall up.}

It’s paint, I tell myself. I can do this, I tell my other self. I can figure this out, I tell . . . no one. It’s more of a prayer at this point. A prayer to the painting muse – please guide me. Show me how to make the planks on this bridge look right.

This.Just.Might.Work.

See how the light paint and dark paint kind of ‘fan’ their way around the curve in the bridge?

I’ll admit it – I wasn’t totally sure, but this was the best I could do, short of calling my friend, Theresa, shooting her a photo, and asking her how to paint this.

Oh, wait – my phone doesn’t take photos. Reason #211 to get a smart phone.

I decided to just go ahead and paint all the pylons, posts and railings. And I prayed. A lot.

It’s not that I can’t repaint it. I can. I have before. Many times. But after 15 years, I’d like to think I can paint a simple bridge.