MURALS
LARGE PAINTINGS
En Plein Air

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A note about small seeds!!! Never take anything for granted!
(This is a tad long....but someone told me.....tell it like it was! SO, I have! Enjoy the journey!)

Back in the mid '70s my folks were moving back to a family home on the East Coast that has been in our family since 1663. Mom was doing a first and only garage sale. Having recently finished getting my BA from the old Los Angeles Art Center College of Design on Third Street, I was gleaning some of the work I had created, that I could not use for my illustration portfolio. That one day, a grade school friend of mine came by, Chris O'Hearn, and purchased one of my watercolors (I had not seen nor heard from Chris for over 11 years). Time passed for all of us....

Then in February of 2006 I received an email from a grade school friend, Anne Clary! Boy, talk about time lapse! THEN, two days later, I get an email from, Chris O'Hearn! I emailed Anne, asking if she had given Chris my email....to which she inquired: "Chris who?"!!!

Well, come to find out, Chris was now Dr. Christopher O'Hearn, president of Mount San Antonio College, in Walnut California! He and his wife, Jeana, had redecorated one of their rooms, and reframed that little water color he bought back in 1973. Wondering what Betty was up to?" Chris googled me! Finding my web site!!

After a few exchanges, that was the last I heard from him, since he is VERY busy as the president of such a large school! (It shares a boundary line with Cal Poly).

Then last August, 2006, Chris O'Hearn called and said the school had just finished an addition to Founder's Hall, and asked if I would do a mural for them! They wanted Mount Baldy, also knows as Mount San Antonio, a massif of the San Bernadino Mountains, which lies within view of the college.

Then, I didn't hear from Chris for a number of months...Around January 2007 I received a call, saying that the building was completed, giving me the specifics, and asking when I could do the commission.

This past February, a friend and I decided to take a workshop from an abstract painter in Sedona Arizona, so Daris and I headed out, packed to the gills with art stuff...and the canvases to create a 6 x 16 foot mural, all in my Astro van...to say the least, we were a bit tight on space!

After the workshop, we visited a friend in southern AZ, went to Mexico for a day trip (picked up a gorgeous skull for the studio!), then proceeded to Descanso, to visit one of my first patrons (Diane owns Evening Solitude, which you can view on my website....www.billupsfineart.com)....then headed for Riverside CA to stay with a dear friend and artist, Elin Pendleton....Thank goodness for Elin! The first 6 days in this area, the haze was so dense, visibility was only about a mile! (You may want to visit Elin's Web site: http://www.dailypaintings.com . She has a ton of awesome paintings NOT shown on this site, in her studio....a pretty powerful artist herself....and an awesome friend!)

FINALLY, the air cleared, and the San Bernadino Mountains could be seen!! I headed out with the 5 gazillion other commuters, toward the L.A. area....got to Mt SAC and finally connected with Dr. Christopher O'Hearn (I kept forgetting, and calling him Chris, to everyone...but, not out of disrespect, mind you!?!?!) Between a dozen meetings, he was able to share with me the beautiful facilities, where the mural was to be hung...a very large meeting room that had a floor and one short wall of Jerusalem slate, two walls of glass, and one long wall to become the home of the mural.

Only after being driven all around the campus: to monogram hill, the water tower hill, and all points between....the challenge was, the school sets in a low valley!!! with a major ridge between it and the mountains!!! Yiks!!! Here I thought I'd be setting on one of the roofs of the college, painting my hearts content, and merely "whipping" this out! HA!!! I spent the rest of that day, and the day following, driving about 200 miles around town, feeling like a mouse in tall grass, "jumping up" and trying to get a view of the mountain range...It seemed totally impossible!!!

THEN, a great idea came to me!!! I found a 7 story hospital, with a railing around the roof! I parked, went inside and asked the receptionist to whom I could ask permission to paint on their roof....explaining my dilemma!!! The guard there took me outside, and said there was a Sears store close by with a parking structure .... to which I swiftly drove...only to find that the structure was BEHIND Sears, and there was no view of anything!!! HOWEVER, upon driving out the back side, saw a theater....with a parking structure bordering the 10 freeway!!!! Drove up there, and round that the structure next door was even taller!!! Yipee!!! Then this guy came up in a little golf cart, asking what the heck I was doing up there....told him, but said I REALLY liked the structure NEXT door...being thrilled to get rid of me (off his "watch"), he drove me over there!! THEN, the guards from this structure showed up, asking the same thing!!! Once they found out I was doing a mural for Mt SAC, all worked out....Whew!!

I pulled out the digital camera...shot the full view....came back the next day to do some studies....and then never saw the mountains again!!! The haze in this area is unbelievable!!! For the following 3 weeks, if I hadn't "seen them thar mountains", I wouldn't have believed there were any!!! I did go out and about, looking for "flora and fauna" for the foreground elements, since concrete walls and tree tops didn't look so great....and spent a day looking for THAT!!!

Well, I had another friend in Temple City, and I stayed with Nancy Seruto for several days....laying out the multiple canvases .... figuring out how the finish would work....I ended up simplifying it, taking out several of the smaller panels, and decided on a 3rd 48x48 panel....not being sure of the design, asked Nancy's Sister Barbara (also an artist) what she thought of it...getting total approval....(thank goodness I had brought extra panels!!!!) Spent that day, painting the edges the dark medium gray, that will be part of the finish!

I took the panels to a dry wash out further east in order to figure out a foreground, which, in the end, got painted over, except for a few colorful spots. About 3 weeks later, when the haze FINALLY cleared, I went back to the parking structure to work on the mountains, which were done entirely en plein air. During this time I worked, securing the full mural to Elin's double car garage...that worked fine for 3 days...working into dark thirty....until one after noon 60 mph winds picked up, and as the dust storm came across the valley to Elin's, I untied the panels, and struggled to get them undercover. One 6x8 foot section was protected, but the second one got hit with the wind and the dust from a thousand camels!!! ARG!!!

The next day, ELin asked if I'd rather not paint inside her second studio space: a converted two-car garage. Well, that took very little persuasion!!!!

One blessing about the wind....it got rid of the haze!! The next day, Nancy called, and said she could see the mountains. And although it was pretty windy in Riverside, I headed out with the 5 gazillion other motorists who had decided THAT day to PARK on the 60 freeway for about 30 miles!!! With map in hand, I finally got off, and found a maze of surface streets that snaked its way across the valley, taking me to my infamous Edward's Cinema Parking structure!!!

Though it was a tad breezy....was able to work the entire mountain section the 16 foot mural on the spot!!! I was visited by most of the guards from the theater....probably a total distraction from their regular detail!!! So the entire mountain portion of the mural was done en plein air!

O, I forgot to mention....the day I first went to paint, I decided my van needed an oil change....after which I got to where I was painting, only to discover my canvas roll-up of brushes was gone!!! I went back to let the "guys' know, that I knew the brushes disappeared while they were working on the van...hope they enjoy them!! AND, I can write them off...and get ALL NEW BRUSHES!!! Yippeeee!!! (thank goodness I still had a nice stash of brushes else where in the van!!!)

THEN, the mountains disappeared....again! Then, they came back! But by this time, I really needed nice foreground stuff. Going with the "flow of a gazillion motorists", headed back to my "spot", I happened to pass Forest Lawn, which was on this awesome hillside, looking toward my beloved mountain range....!!!! I drove in, as if to visit a long lost friend, only to find out no one would give me permission to paint from their lovely hillside....so, back to the digital!!! I shot a ton of images of Eucalyptus trees (my favorite tree in the world, and which I miss tremendously, since PAPA no longer paints at Catalina Island). That night, I stayed at Nancy's (she's 10 miles from my "views" whereas Elin is 40....) The next day, Nancy had some major work to do at her studio (she is doing a major installation for both Harley Davidson AND the entire network of Catholic Sisters....no, not together!!! separate installations....and also, something special for CSI!!!! For those who have viewed the more recent King TUT exhibition that is traveling across the States, Nancy also created that installation! (I don't fool around with choosing my friends!!! Actually, didn't choose them...they came as wonderful gifts, into my life!!)
Any way, Nancy allowed me to use her work printer, computers etc, to print out all the images I had shot at Forest Lawn, in order to finish the mural!! Boy, the friends that have saved my....you know what!!!!

AND I had one more MAJOR SAVE....I had just finished the sky (from 17 cloud studies I brought with me), and was really happy how the light flowed over the edge of the mountain tops. When Elin Pendelton walks in, and tells me I have it all wrong!?!? Told me I had a "peak", told me to cut the top off, and lift the right side...and then I'd have a "massif"!! Having studied illustration, and learning that either you do it right...so that when a professional in the field of what you are painting, sees what you have created, and totally approves of it...or you don't do it at all!! Well, I cut that mountain down, lifted it's eastern slopes, and suddenly I FELT the spirit of that Massif!!! Soooo glad, I have the friends I do!!!!
Well, to shorten this...here I was doing the foreground. Was into my third or fourth day of foreground, thinking I had another two days of work... was going to add a curved hill covered with houses, when some miraculous thing happened: I WAS DONE!!! Boy, did that sneak up on me!!!!

Not sure you noticed, but I created the clouds from separate cloud studies. And since I had such a challenge with the haze and clouds, I decided to honor that natural element, by including the "hide and seek" element they posed for me, by capturing this in the finished design of the mural!

The mural was installed the last Tuesday of April!!! The wood shop on the campus did the installation, finishing it off with black teak, trimming the entire mural, and separating each panel...!!

The image here is a tad less color than the final....a tad too much blue and earth tones, compared to the final original!! hope you enjoy it...as much as I am, now that it is finished!!!! Close ups will show a splattering of turquoise, mauves, blues, etc, that give little areas of excitable color....since it is in a walking space, and needed something besides large juicy brush strokes!!!

One added blessing came from this mural. Dr. O'Hearn offered me a one artist exhibition at the Mt. SAC Gallery, where 150 originals were hung for the spring of 2007! If you are interested in a documented CD of that exhibit, I do have them for sale, for $10....AND that "blessing" of captured images, was the result of a dear high school friend, Anita Copeland Mauch, who traveled across town to capture the entire exhibition, of over 150 paintings, gorgeously displayed by the Mt. SAC's art curator, Fatemeh Burns. To whom I am greatly thankful!