Mural Painting



Plan: Small scale painting of a photograph by David Shaw of a palestinian boy throwing a stone at the Isreali army.  

 

Plan: Small scale drawing of a photograph I took of a crazy monsoon in India.

 How to make a Fresco (from the latin meaning fresh) Mural:

1. Remove the previous mural from the wall using a pick axe. Being careful only to take off the plaster and not bits of the wall below.

2. Wash the wall with a power washer then hoover the water up with a water hoover.

3. Fill in any deep holes in the wall with plaster (lime, sand and water mixed together).

4. Project your design on the wall using an over head projector. Drawing it out with a light pigment colour.

5. Plaster over only the part of the wall that you are ready to paint. With fresco painting (like what Michelangelo did) you have to paint the wall within the four hours it taked for the newly plastered wall to dry. The paint (pigament and water) binds with the wet plaster making it a durable and lasting painting. Make sure you have mixed your paint before you start and you have enough of it. Remember the paint drys 50% lighter.





Tuk



Ben

Its harder than I thought to make a fresco. The time limit means you have to work quickly and you cant correct any mistakes after it has dried. The paints are hard to blend on the wall meaning you have to work more with block colours. If paint drips onto other parts of the mural then you have to gauge out the plaster with the drip on, if you try and wipe it you are left with a dirty smudge.

This project has made me think a lot more about scale. What looks good on a small piece of paper may not be so good on large scale. Details and small marks are clearly visible on a 3mx3m wall and if you do them badly it is obvious whereas they would have gone unnoticed before. I dont really like my mural that much I think the image I chose looks better as a photograph or as a small painting. I thought that it was important for a mural to have some kind of political significance as many people would see it and why else make something so big if not to influence the viewer. Im not sure its really clear whats going on in my mural. It could be any boy and any army anywhere. There is nothing to suggest its in Palestine. But now I know exactly how to a fresco, and how to plaster a wall. I want to do some murals in Madrid- but maybe I wont use the fresco techinique its a bit long winded and old fashioned.

Some examples of murals from around the studio



Being taught about pigments

The first half of my mural which took 6 hours of solid painting.

The second half of my mural being painted with help from my group. You can see how light the paint on the top half has dried in comparison with the picture above.

this is me and my lovely group







nice kites mate

Good exhibition at Caixa Forum

Teotihuacan. Ciudad de los Dioses. 27 Julio al 13 Noviembre.

October

This month I started at Universidad Complutence Madrid. Its the biggest university in europe (98,000 students). You have to get a bus from one side to the other.

Its pretty laid back here. We have the whole of October to decide which classes we want to go to. As we have to get 30 credits that means 5 classes. We can choose any class from any of the years and from any course. Its great to have so much freedom but also very confusing- there are literally hundreds of classes and all of them have a different teacher and are at different times.

So far I have tried Lithography, Anatomy, Clay sculpting, Wood carving, Life Drawing, Fundamental Painting, Mural Painting, Etching, Wood cuts and lino printing, Theatre Design and some broader studio based classes. Trying to fit all of these classes around each other is tricky and trying to understand the teachers is even harder.

My spanish is appaling and trying to learn it is so hard. Its difficult in classes when you cant understand a single thing the teacher says. Luckily I can follow Ben around who asks all the questions for me, and there are always a few teachers or students that can speak some english. Its wierd feeling like a complete idiot and not understanding anything but everyone is so helpful and not really bothered if i do things wrong or look at them blankly. I think they are used to Erasmus students here. But I really do wish that I knew some Spanish before I got here. Ive started evening classes at a school called InHispania, hopefully that will help.

Its a strange way of studying Art here. Like its an academic subject. I find it really hard having to think of something to make out of wood or something to etch for example. At Camberwell I usually think of an idea and then make it out of whatever is appropriate. Im not sure how well my work will turn out... Its definitely good practice though and I think learning fundamental skills and techniques is something that Camberwell lacks in and something I am benefiting from greatly.

Manifestacion!

Great day in Madrid when we went to a protest. Im used to student protests but here there were people of all ages which was nice, and not lots of people trying to destroy topshop.

Katy had an inspirational message.

 It seemed to be a bit of a general protest - people had banners about everything.

Great party in Sol at the end.

Change of Location.

Dear fans, sorry I havent posted for so long.
Now I live in Madrid.
For the first month I mostly made friends, got drunk, attepmted to learn spanish and did a lot of touristy things.

What a lovely place.
Its so cheap to travel around here, I have an 'abono' which is a ticket that means i can go anywhere in zone A for 30€ a month.
And me and Ben live in right in the centre of Madrid in a small, dark and dirty old flat but our housemates are great and so is the location, everything is within walking distance (not uni though).
And nobody has a garden so the parks are always full of people having a lie down and the streets are full of people having cervesas. My favorite Spanish tradition so far is botellon. This is where hundreds of young people hang around in plazas and parks and drink lots of booze. People even walk round selling you beers for a euro. That wouldnt happen in London.