Getting the mural onto the wall.The projection and early days painting.

Rather than use an A4 size image to project from I decided to use a larger one which would allow me to capture more detail. Here I've printed out the colour rough on 3 A4 sheets to make the  images bigger and easier to see . I've traced around all the figures and then placed a grid over it. The vertical lines correspond to the joins in the panels and the horizontals are just at a 3rd distance. 
Now we will paint the horizontal lines on the mural and just use the joins for the verticals.
 Here is the wall gridded up ready to project. The first attempt was a non event as the projector bulb blew just after this! I sourced another bulb ( + some spares!) and we rescheduled for the next night.

Day 1

Lucky its not summer or I get eaten alive by the ants in the ant nest in the foreground..

Day 2 - 

Above - Doing the first section. I'm correcting the distortion at the out edges. The borders weren't accurate. If you look at the LHS top box border you can see 2 lines - ones the one the projector gave us the other the correct line I measured

 to make it vertical.

 Outlining the grasstree

 The most complicated section - the Co op. I hadn't realised before but as the panels are set onto the ground it means the figures in front of the Coop are going to be very close to the ground and I'll have to kneel to paint them..We'll find out how my old knees like that.. Still it does mean the rest is lower than previous murals I've painted so there is only a small step ladder needed to reach the top. That will really speed things up!

 Pretty rough but they are only for placement.I'll fine tune them and get the proportions more accurate etc as I paint each figure.

 Final section! Note the 2 marks above the  Mine Poppethead. I had decided I wanted the Poppethead a bit higher so we used the general overlay for the box and then moved it up so the Poppethead sat on those two marks to get it to sit in the box well. The poppethead is where the miners used to get lowered up and down into the mine. I used a logo used in the West Wallsend Primary School centenary celebrations and I've simplified this one a bit for design purposes.

Day 3 -

Phew .. Finally all ready to go and not one projector bulb blew!

 I've started doing the large areas first as they will be quickest and it will also allow me to see how the overall effect will be early on in the process. I mixed the colours in the mural colour rough and everything should have been fine but it wasn't.. I found I had to lighten each colour and the original background colour and mountains had to be redone a few times until I was happy. I've also painted out the horizontal gridlines.

Day 4 -

 Here you can see I've painted the mountains but I fell they are too dark compared to the colour rough. I want to keep to it's colour scheme as I know it works so I am experimenting with lighter colours until I think it will work and still be interesting.

Finally I'm happy and repaint the mountains.I will also repaint the foreground yellow as it needs to be a bit brighter and more yellow ( warmer).

I've started on the main colours for the building to see how it will all look. I've actually done more than this but the mural was in dappled shade so doesn't photograph well. I'll get some photos later when it's in shade.

This is where I got to at the end of the day. I changed the front yellow colour to a darker brighter one .I tested a colour for the poppethead and that worked so it will be ready to go when I am. My next step will be to detail the main building more and do the shadowed area under the verandah.