Painting Round the Fountain

Well, I'm finally back in the wall painting business, and it feels good! There is nothing like the exhilaration of having a whole wall to play with, especially when one has been limited to a tiny work-space for months. 

This one was in the Weissmans' home, in Maale Adumim. Working with people on making their dream home requires a whole other level of involvement and interaction. It's more challenging, but also more rewarding. 

The wall set aside for the mural was to the side of a dining room, right by the stairway, with a lovely Moroccan-style tiled sink 

The entire house had a Moroccan theme, and the Weissman asked to create the mural around the sink, playing up the Moroccan element. 

To me, the most significant aspect of Moroccan-style decorating is the richness of color. So I suggested we go for a color scheme dominated by a rich blue, with some touches of green, and possibly red. This photo was my inspiration:

They agreed, wanting the blue to pick up on the shades in the sink tiles. Since color would be the keynote, we decided to go for acrylic paints, and to invest in some high quality pigments. I bought a lot of cheaper Israeli acrylics, and then got a Golden ultramarine, red, raw umber, and Indian yellow hue.
 The Weissmans also wanted the arabesque to be the central shape, and to possibly include some kind of archway. Something along these lines:

I suggested a trope l'oeil effect of placing the fountain within a garden that is seen through an archway.

Stage One:

The wall was a pale yellow, with the paint peeling in places, and some uneven spackle. The first stage was applying two layers of white wash.

Stage Two:
I wanted to get a very clean, bright blue that was nonetheless luminous. I did not want the mural to look too dark, or to look out of place with the rest of the house.
 Last year, I worked on a Pat Steir installation at the NYSS Gallery. I decided to make use of the technique I had learned there when prepping the walls: 

1. I prepared several very diluted mixtures of different shades of blue (cobalt, ultramarine, pthalo, indigo, and cerulean). 
2. I sponged on the mixture with a clean white rag, with broad strokes.
3. Wait for the layer to dry (this does not take too long, as the paint is so thin).
4. Sponge on the next layer with a different shade, using a new rag.

This technique is very time consuming, as you have to wait between each layer, and it takes many layers to get to dark rich color (I think the wall ended up taking about 15 alternating layers all together, with ultramarine and cerulean dominating ). 

The plus is that you have very exact control over the shade, as you can use each layer to change the color in minute ways. Also, even though the color gets very rich, it does not swallow the light.

Stage Three:

Having set the base-note of color, I now needed to pick out the drawing. I now began to work with heavier, opaque paint, covering up the dark blue to create the garden.

Here is the wall at the end of my first day of work on the mural:

 

I had time to create a step that would move the garden back in space, and started to pick out the shape of the archway.
Stepping back, it became clear that drawing architectural elements on this scale was going to be hard. I am used to eye-balling perspective, but when one can't see the whole wall at once, that isn't every effective! It was hard to even get a straight line.