The mural is for the new bedroom of my three year old nephew Jordan.
Well, that was intense– I don’t think I’ve ever painted quite so fast! Before departing Canada to make it back to Indonesia to play in an ultimate frisbee tournament, I only had five days to complete the painting. Of course, the ideas for it had been percolating after a week of discussing the idea with my brother and family, but still… five days is pretty tight!
Usually, a commissioned mural like this would require lots of drafting, pre-sketching, a makette (a practice painting), careful color selection and many layers of diligent painting. A month would be a reasonable time-frame for something of this size. However, Ed and Mindy made it unequivocally clear they would be happy with whatever I painted and that they were good with whatever I came up with– that meant I could do away with the professional parameters.
I felt like a little kid given permission to draw on the walls! It meant that I could let my imagination fly on the wings of unbridled intuition! In fact, it was essential I realized to do so, if I had planned, plotted and perfected too much I would never get it done in time.
Snake in the orange tree. Key in hand. Coffer in the corner.
In years of doing art, I’ve come to have great faith in my subconscious. Its amazing how one can subconsciously come up with ideas and stories that you could never think up intellectually! It’s taken years of creative expression to come to the simple confidence in just flowing with my own hunches and subtle inclinations.
I suppose it’s also taken years to be able to open my mind’s ears to hear and head my intuited voice. I have realized that if you can do this, the artistic creation will come to speak to you (and hopefully others too) after it’s complete.
I painted and packed right down to the last hours before my flight! Despite working til 4Am the night before my flight and down to the very last minute before heading to the airport, I alas hadn’t quite wrapped it up. 🙁 I despaired that I hadn’t been able to completely full in several sections of color.
My brother Chris’s first training plane looks on while the night drips down.
However, I was overjoyed to see that my brother (tasked with packing up my leftover paint cans) had taken it upon himself to fill in the missing colors! Yeay! It looks way better now for photos at the very least.
I think I still have a few tweaks to make when I revisit. And of course, I’ll have to take a good look and listen to what my soul has said. Meanwhile, it’s now up for Jordan to enjoy.
