Trethevy Quoit - recent mural commission

​The slide show below is a brief illustration of the process I recently went through for a client.

The person concerned contacted me after seeing my work online - in particular my painting "Night or Day"

The difference was that they wanted a mural on the granite wall of their sun-room in their cottage near Liskeard in Cornwall.

So - my first step - come up with an idea...

I  know Liskeard a little and having scanned through my client's facebook photos came across a view of Trethevy Quoit - not far from their house. It's a neolithic tomb dating to around 3500 BC. I found a reference photo and messed around with it digitally and sent some results (including the image in the featured slide show )

 
I sent the digital ideas - and luckily the comment came back "you must be some sort of mind-reader". That was a good start.

The next issue was the size (or rather the shape) of the proposed mural - a square of about 4' x 4' (120cm x 120cm) - so the use of a sun or moon in that format needed a rejig. That's the two square sketches. The second was a 1/3 wax and wash 'sketch' - after visiting the client at home we agreed on the design. One thing we agreed on was that the mural should have some semblance of a stained glass window. (hence the use of dark outlines on the main objects) and be a stylised representation.

We then had to leave things for about a month as I went off on holiday and it was convenient for everyone.

In the interim I produced full size cutouts for the main shapes and at the beginning of September set off for Liskeard for the first of six visits. I had researched mural painting in acrylic as  well as I could and took advice from a few people.


The slide show gives a reasonable idea of the process. The most interesting challenge was the highly pitted nature of the granite wall. Some of the lumps and bumps are over an inch deep. The inherent bonus in that is the natural 3D effect that the rock surface gave to the overall painting - especially when seen in reality. The mottling gave interesting colour effects as well, as the light changes in the space - the colours seem to change and shift. I also used a new tool - a herring gull feather used like a quill pen to give the crazed effect.

The final coat of varnish was done on Day 6. The client is very happy with the work. From my viewpoint it was a great piece of work to do from planning to completion, it was quite hard work physically as I used muscles I had forgotten about.

​From a calling card point of view it's brilliant as it's the first thing any caller to their house sees.

​I'd do it again...

Just ask me here