The creation of the mural colour rough for the Wallsend Heritage Mural

I created a smaller colour version of the mural to nut out all the problems with colour before it went on the wall. Much easier to correct a small version with a flick of the paint brush than spend a few hours changing the same thing on the wall! Here is the finished version.

 The actual figures are very small so I couldn't put much detail into their faces and I couldn't spare a lot of time to finish it to my usual level. I was  keen to start the actual mural as I know it will take a while to paint and it has to be ready in September.

Above -  I'm starting to work out a colour scheme. I won't be able to make the images really colourful as I feel for the historic period I'll have to be a little conservative with the Co op store colours. As I want that to be centre stage all the other images will have to be marginally less colourful. So to get some zap into the mural I decided to have the mountains as a design rather than realistic then I could use some interesting colours and they will still ' read ' as natural.The background can be colourful now.

Here you can see my reference material - the original B & W  version for placement gridded up to make it easier to get everything placed correctly. With such a complicated mural if I got the Co op too far to the left when drawing it up it would make everything out of whack.

Further along.I had to think about background colours for each box - colours that would highlight each subject but not take your eye away from the Co op.Almost done I just have to detail the figures to the front of the centre Bay horse and rider. There's a little story going on there ( I love stories ). The horse is looking at the little child who is absorbed in her own world.

OK I'm happy with that. Now if I follow this on the wall it should be easy ...( shouldn't it..?? lol's)