My first mural...

As any of you who follow me on social media know, I am working on a very large, public and outdoor mural.  The Furman University Art Department asked me to be the artist and mastermind of the project.  Each May session, FU Art leads two local murals. They choose an artist to design it and a class of students help paint it.  This is Furman's third year doing it, and I was the artist chosen. 

Our mural is located on the side of Stax Original Restaurant at Cherrydale intersection in Greenville, SC.  Pepsi is sponsoring the mural.  So far, the hardest part of the project was the designing phase. I needed to make sure Furman, Stax, Pepsi and myself were all represented and happy with the design.  After MANY variations, meetings and some blood from the paper cutter, we came to a final design.  I drew it in pen and ink and painted it with acrylic paint.  Furman and I hoped to problem solve as much as possible before we ran into complications on the 39 x 13 foot wall.

As of today, we are a week into the work on the wall.  The first 2 nights were spent projecting my drawing onto the wall in order to trace it.  The projection was not super clear, so it took a while to get the drawing right.  We are now several days into the painting part.  A large portion of the wall has some paint on it, but we still have a long way to go.  So far, Fox News and WYFF News 4 have both interviewed us!

This experience has already been a blast.  It has reminded me of how much I love the academic art world.  It is also so meaningful to be a part of a community project that people are excited about.  And luckily, the Furman students may be the sweetest college kids ever.  Anyway, stay tuned this month. We will have the it finished by the end of May.