September 26th, our 31st Mural Painting Session

(c)2011 Judy Burgarella, Dawn Mill, Christine Thomas

 NOTE: The Vero Beach Mural Project is being Sponsored by the Vero Beach Art Club, and created by Artist Volunteers Judy Burgarella (http://www.burgarellaart.com/)  Dawn Mill and Christine Thomas (www.innerspacesandouterplaces.com).   Examples of artists' work can be found on www.verobeachartclub.org/) The Mural consistes of six stretched canvas panels, 36' long by 8' high, each panel 8' x 6'.  Created in and for the Community Center, in their "Florida Room."  Visitors are welcome to watch the artists paint between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays.

Got to the Community Center bright and early, Dunkin' in hand, and after setting up Dawn and I discussed my second panel, and what types of ecosystems we should depict.  By this time I have accumulated 2 file boxes full of reference material, all neatly categorized according to flora and fauna ID's.  All three of us continuously find new images and information to add to our roster of research, and I am realizing that more and more of my time is spent just "thinking" about the mural, and what to put in it.  Because we didn't really have a detailed "plan" our creative selves tend to imagine new and exciting things to put into our canvases.  So today, after a weekend's rest (and research), we seemed to all come to the canvases with new ideas and a fresh insight. 

We hope to add another day, or partial day--Tuesdays 8:00 to 1:00--to our roster whenever we can, as we begin to get busier with in-season commitments and we will sometimes miss our regular painting sessions.  Dawn will be teaching classes some of the days, Christine has "paying" jobs to do, and I have show commitments.  My work "European Doorways" will be featured in the Artists Guild Gallery for the Month of October, with an opening reception October 7th, 5-8 pm (shameless plug for me!)

Today we mostly moved off of the "comfort zone" sections of our panels, and worked on more blank areas (a scary thing for sure!)  Christine worked on stingrays on panel #4, and one I've wrestled with myself--man can they sting! Christine is also working on the layout for panel #6, the ocean/reef panel. There is a lot of preparation that goes into the planning of each panel.

Below is pictured some children that Dawn is working on on her Panel #5.  This panel will be alive with people having fun and critters going about the business of their everyday lives.

Panel #5 - Dawn Mill adds children and sea birds to her canvas

Below is a detail of my Panel #2, with cattle ranch, hammocks, orange groves in distance.  I have repainted and reshaped the blocked-in  sandpaths, plant and grassy areas to better make room for the critters that will be painted in after all the growth has been painted.

Panel #2 - Judy Burgarella fine-tunes horizon elements

For a fresh look at the progress of the whole Vero Beach Mural Project, below I have connected all for you to see.  Kindly overlook the color variation and match-up, as it is quite a feat to match them up electronically.


Panels #1 through #6 - side-by-side completed as of September 26th

 Well, that's all folks.  Dawn is painting at the mural on Tuesday ... I wonder what she's painting?  We'll see on Friday, so stay tuned for more postings!
Judy Burgarella
Blogger for the Vero Beach Mural Project