In September 2023, I spent a few weeks on a farm in Western Australia doing farm chores and helping with the annual Canola Festival. We kept in touch after I left. When I sent a picture of the Mural I did in Ocean Shores, Pam, one of the owners, sent me this poster and somewhat jokingly suggested I come back someday and paint it on one of the farm buildings.
Fast forward over a year and I was sitting in Thailand, planning my next destination. Perth, Australia is more or less due south of Bangkok, so I sent a note asking Pam if she was serious about me coming back to paint. It turned out they had just the spot for the mural picked out and we planned my arrival for early December.
Getting Started
The weather has been particularly hot and windy this year, with some days over 100 degrees F (38C) and winds gusting to 25 mph (11 kmh). The paint literally flew off the paint brushing at times. Work time was limited to the early morning hours.
Setting the horizon across the 20 foot container was fun. Standing in just the right spot, the mural horizon line matched the actual horizon, giving the illusion of blending in with the sky in the background.
I set up shop in the shaded, out of the wind on the opposite side of the container and started to mix colors. Just like the other murals I have done, there was nearly enough paint hiding around the property to do the entire projects. In this case, we only bought one 100 ml pot of red and one of yellow to give me what I needed for the full color pallet.
Rough blocking gave me a good idea about placement and a way to check in with Pam to see if we were headed in a direction that matched her vision. Filling the 20 by 8 foot space meant expanding on the original poster image. In additional to Canola, the farm grows sunflowers so I added sunflowers to capture that part of the farm activities in the mural.
Grasshopper were everywhere this year. The chickens were feasting on them near the house but the ones near the mural were boldly joining me in my art. It was tempting to incorporate one into the painting.
One of my favorite things about staying at the farm is the vast, every changing sky. Throughout the day, the clouds come and go according to the dynamic weather patterns.
This also created one of the bigger challenges; what kind of clouds to paint into the mural. Clouds are tricky on a small scale and when painting a large mural, they are even more difficult. Add high temperatures and wind that make blending almost impossible and I was ready to leave the entire sky blue. I struggled with the clouds until the very end.
Some days, it was possible to resume work at 6 in the evening. On this night, the moon rose just over the part of the container where I was working on the sunflowers.
Here I am in my official painter attire, adding a few finishing touches.
Murals on containers are difficult to finish because they image changes so much throughout the day. The corrugated surface changes how the image looks from different angles. The movement of the sun and changing light then multiply those changes throughout the entire day.
Calling a mural done for me is a matter of deciding it looks more or less right most of the time. There is always more that could be done, so calling it finished is something of a concession.
Other volunteers came up to take pictures and we captured this cute pose. I hope visitors to the Canola festival enjoy posing with the mural for many years to come.
2 Responses
You are amazing!!
It looks great Anne, that’s why the crickets seem to like it very very much!