There were some challenges this week that made my mural painting just a bit more challenging, but somehow I'll make it!

First, I had been planning to spend all day yesterday, today, and tomorrow painting the building.  The forecast had predicted that it would be in the high 40's until Saturday...but yesterday was much colder than the 49 degrees it was supposed to be... It was 37 degrees all day, because the sun never ended up coming out. 

Second, I had met with the rental people, and apparently, they have rented all of their scissorlifts out this month and don't know when they'll be back.  Apparently, because the ground is kind of soggy, they can't let me use a regular scissorlift (or it will get stuck in the ground), I would have to use one meant for terrain.      If only the ground was concrete in front of the building!  The other rental place in our city also had rented all of theirs out as well.  Scissorlifts weigh about 6,000 pounds, so probably isn't a good idea to be driving one on soggy ground.

So I had to make a choice- wait until they knew when they would have the right kind of scissorlift available (which could be another month or more), or just go ahead and use the scaffolding.

After discussing it with many people and my husband, I decided to go with the scaffolding.  I wasn't too happy with the idea (of course, neither was anyone else!), but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

So yesterday, two men came out to set the scaffolding up... as I was watching them, I wished that I had worn something warmer, because it was just so cold!  lol   I had a light jacket with a hood.   (Eventually I did sort of adjust to it- when you're moving around a lot, it warms you up).     I was pleasantly surprised by how sturdy the scaffolding was- I had been afraid that it would be shaky, but it does stand pretty firm.     There is a board that goes across the whole area that I will be working on.



When I got started, I started to realize just how enormous this project really is.   The length of the banner is going to be 36 feet (I had forgotten before, and thought it was only 30), and 11 feet tall.    The scaffolding actually does get in the way of where the bottom of the banner will be.  I guess when I get to the painting part for that, I can hopefully have them push the scaffolding out of the way.  

I spent about 4 hours climbing up onto the scaffolding, trying to measure the wall, and figure out where the banner would be placed, going back down to the bottom and trying to measure again to see if I had it right- walking back far away to see if I had it centered correctly (using duct tape as a reference point for where the corners would be), and then climbing back up and down the scaffolding over and over and over. Since I had no one to help hold the other side of the tape measure, I had to try holding it on one side with duct tape, and sometimes it wouldn't stick completely and I would have to go over and re-tape it.... it would have helped tremendously having another set of hands, but my husband was at work and I can't think of anyone else who could do it.  But next time I will have someone help me, *don't worry.*

It was a lot of work with seemingly so little progress to show for it.   After 4 hours, this is all I had- a rectangle!  I felt silly.... I never would have thought that a rectangle could be so much work but it really was!   I have a lot more appreciation for muralists who do this kind of thing all of the time.  Of course, they probably use a scissorlift.



The next 3 hours I spent trying to make the grid lines - I went across the whole rectangle, marking each 1 foot area.  Then I used masking tape, stuck it to the top, and then let the tape roll fall down under the scaffolding.  Then, I would climb down, go under the scaffolding and tape it the rest of the way. Then, I would use black paint to mark a line beside the masking tape.  This was a time consuming process.  

After a few hours, I looked back at it, and I couldn't tell for sure whether my lines were completely vertical. If they are leaning at all, I will have to completely redo them, because it would distort the whole image. The scaffolding itself isn't completely level, so it kind of threw me off ...and I don't have a level that will show whether vertical lines are level-only horizontal (I'll be buying one of those this week), so I just decided to leave it until I can figure that one out. I don't want to do anymore until I know for sure everything is aligned correctly.

It may be next week before I can get started again - possibly Saturday if it's warm...James will be able to help me then.    Once the grid and the outlines are finished, the actual painting part shouldn't take nearly as long.     Whew!