In April 2011 I volunteered to work on a mural for the HOPE Campaign Castle Wall project in Austin, Texas. The wall space measures approximately 30 feet in length and 17 feet at it’s highest. The city of Austin has promised this wall space to the HOPE Campaign for at least 3 years.

Wall Space

Since I have a printmaking background and access to equipment, I decided to approach this project in a familiar form.

Silk Screen with Burned Images

I begun by screen printing repeatable patterns onto 19″ x 25″ white paper. The actual graphic measures 17″ x 23″, so the paper will need to be trimmed by an inch all the way around so the patterns bleed off the edge of the paper. The result is seamless tiles. This paper should also be light and thin enough to paste up. Below are some shots of the actual screen prints. Some are 2 colors and some only one.

Paper Stack

Actual images of the screenprints.

Paper Patterns

Aside from the patterns, I created this 4 foot by 6 foot portrait of a woman to adorn the right side of the mural. The process for creating her began as a small hand drawing, which I scanned and altered in Illustrator. I printed the black and white graphic out on a laser jet in four, 2 foot by 3 foot sections, and then hand painted each section to give it some color.

Process

Painting Patterns

The pasting part of the project took about 12 hours spread across 6 days. That does not including the preparation time for creating the materials used. Below are the pictures of the final work.

Day 2 Progress

HOPE Campaign Mural

Day 06

About the HOPE Campaign

The HOPE (Helping Other People Everywhere) Campaign a project of HOPE Events Inc. an energy conscious 501(c)3 non-profit focused on involving artists and their contributions in campaigns, programs and events to support existing social projects that promote education and peace around the world.