PATRIOTIC MURAL FOR BILL
It was blazing hot August when I secured a contract to paint my first wall on Main Street. Bill, owner of Elite Bonding, shook my sweaty hand and I spent the next week painting and guzzling free Mountain Dew from Main Street Liquor, only a short crawl from Bill's.
A few months earlier, Bill approached me while I was working on the Dragon mural on Douglas Ave. He said he wanted something really BIG and BOLD on the side of his shop so people would know what to look for from the road. I didn't have any other help from him on what he wanted, so I hit up his website to see if anything would guide me... and BINGO! Bill is a former US Marine! I instantly decided on a patriotic theme and dove into my pinterest tattoo boards. The eagle with wide wings was a perfect fit for a deep one-story building. Bill loved my ideas and gave me the go ahead on this coveted wall on Main Street. Unfortunately, there was no way to know that my Eagle would only be temporary. . .
Picture by Rae Curtis shared in a public post on fb.
On March 3, 2020, an F-3 tornado gutted Bill's building. The mural is still entirely there, which is amazing to me! But I'm sure it's a total loss and soon to see the bucket of a bulldozer. My eagle didn't have a first birthday, but I learned a lot painting it and have beautiful photos to prove it happened.
See more Eagle Mural photos here.
About this mural:
The imagery was inspired by traditional tattoo and pop art. Instead of painting the usual waving flag, I decided to use the lines of the cinder block to create an optical illusion of zigzag architecture. And the stars were more of a subtle tessellation that I thought would allow the wall to visually breath since the other elements were quite dramatic in scale & color.
This wall was 35'w x 9'h. I spent about 50 hours over 10 days completing this mural. I used a #SherwinWilliams product called #SuperPaint. Super Paint is worth the money since it's one-coat coverage mostly, except for darker colors. SuperPaint is extremely durable to weather and sunlight, so when a budget allows for it, I always buy it.
