Children’s Book Illustrators Paint Mural Behind Decatur Rec Center
Decatur Metro | May 2, 2013
As was announced rather haphazardly by yours truly on Tuesday, two children’s book illustrators Chris Raschka and Bob Staake were in town Wednesday to paint a mural behind the Rec Center in celebration of “Screen-Free Week”. Well, here’s the finished product, courtesy of Little Shop Dave!
And Little Shop Diane wrote this comment in the original post this morning…
Thanks to everyone who came out to see the mural painting yesterday! It is really fantastic! If you haven’t seen it yet, plan a trip to view it this weekend.
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I have a dumb question. Do muralists have the design planned ahead or do they just go at it?
According to Wikipedia’s article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural , “A consultation usually leads to a detailed design and layout of the proposed mural with a price quote that the client approves before the muralist starts on the work. The area to be painted can be gridded to match the design allowing the image to be scaled accurately step by step. In some cases the design is projected straight onto the wall and traced with pencil before painting begins. Some muralists will paint directly without any prior sketching, preferring the spontaneous technique.”
Chris (art on left) and Bob (on the right) had this planned beforehand in a general way. They knew what background colors they wanted and knew in general what each was painting. Chris’ art is based on his new book, Everyone Can Learn to Ride A Bicycle. Bob did his based on his graphic art work. I think they were also shooting for a kind of urban scene feel to it. Their styles mesh really well together, creating a very, very cool mural.
I was there when they painted this! The pastel background “canvas” had obviously been painted earlier and left to dry. Once they started painting the actual mural, it only took them about an hour or so to complete it. One cool thing happened as each one painted city buildings: Bob stopped to admire the way Chris painted his and tried to learn more about his technique. It seemed like a genuine moment, as if the artists forgot that they had an audience.
A big thanks to Diane for arranging this! Hope to see more in the future!
Thanks for the eyewitness report, Delores. I wish I had been there to see the process and I will def stop by to see the finished work.
Silly and nice. Inspires me to right (ah-hem) a poem:
“Bikes of course, and a plane.
Make it better? Add a train!”