I painted my first mural when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. The piece consisted of giant blobs of saturated paint bursting out from around the art class's door. It took me a handful of hours over one weekend, and I spent the rest of my time in school there excited by the fact that I had made my impact.
Since then I have painted a 100-foot concrete wall down the driveway of a health-food store, a floral wall in a women's bathroom, a simple forest nursery, a hyperrealist forest scene in a child's bedroom, a gym's exterior wall, and several book-themed pieces at my local libraries.
My relationship with painting murals has always been a bit mixed. On the one hand, they take a long time. There is so much planning and sketching, prepping, plus the physical labor of moving a ladder back and forth as you go, planning out which layers you're going to paint in which order to save the most time and supplies. It's a lot. On the other hand, for someone who mainly does digital art, they give one the opportunity to really feel that physical connection with your creation. They're big, and tangible, and they take a long time, and yes I know I was just complaining about that but in this case I mean there is time to really sink in to your work.
Just recently I finished painting a mural at the Burbank Public Library, part of the Walla Walla Rural Library District, done in a style that matched the other murals I had done at the College Place Branch. I went about my usual process for murals: creating a digital sketch over an image of the wall itself, picking out the paints, and sketching out the design. Wanting to avoid getting in patron's way, I opted to do my work after close, meaning I would get there in the evening, pop on an audiobook, and get to work as the sun set. There is this rhythm you find after painting for several hours that I have yet to find doing anything else. One second you're present, and the next it's like you're operating off of instinct. The work is getting done, you're enjoying yourself, it's a great audiobook. Suddenly you take a step back and it's been five hours and you realize you're halfway done.
People talk about getting in "the zone," this magical frame of mind that comes when you allow yourself to forget the world and simply focus on your task. It's a wonderful place where creativity is unlocked, productivity is restored, and motivation is in high supply as you do whatever you set out to do with seemingly low effort. You awake from it like from a trance, gazing at what you managed to accomplish with wonder.
It's a great sensation, and certainly makes me a lot more willing to take on murals in the future, even if I still end up sore the next day.
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