About wonderful mural in the arty old town

I posted this wonderful mural when it was first done back in the autumn of 2011- arty old town. The colourful bicycles were added later. It'll be familiar to most Mancunians but any out-of-towners who watched the final of The Young Apprentice last month will also have seen it flash by.

All a vast improvement from how it used to look, see Dirty old town.

This article from the Monday Murals .

A bouyt City Hall WPA murals could talk,

If the City Hall WPA murals could talk, they’d tell stories of councilmen smoking celebratory cigars in hallways, warm winter nights perched above hissing radiators, and tales of all the dust kicked up since Charles Allen Winter first painted them back in the 1930s.

City Hall WPA murals 

That’s why a handful of the murals high on the walls of the first floor of City Hall are undergoing restoration which will continue over the next three weeks. Smoke and urban grit build up has borne down on the paintings overtime and some cleaning and retouching with acrylic paint had already begun to sharpen and enhance the paintings by the end of the first session Tuesday.

Gloucester’s Committee for the Arts worked for years to raise the $28,000 that will fund a restoration of the art murals that provide character to the City Hall, according to Catherine Ryan, the mayor’s representative on the committee.

“A lot of this art has waited over 75 years for attention and their time has come,” Ryan said. “It’s a lot of work that has gotten us to this point, and it’s going to be continued work.”

Funding for restoration stemmed from seARTS grants, Massachusetts Cultural Council funding and Community Preservation Act appropriations. Individuals and local foundations also chipped in, according to Ryan.

The committee hired Peter Williams Museum Services to retouch and conserve the art, work that the company’s owner, Peter Williams, said had likely never been done on the City Hall’s murals.

“It isn’t often that cities can afford to do this and it takes a lot of time for people to realize they’re dirty,” Williams said.

With the help of painting conservators Jackie Trombley and Stephanie Angelo, the murals should be refreshed in three weeks time, with the two women working about four hours a day, three days a week.

Trombley crouched down on scaffolding above the entrance to Mayor Carolyn Kirk’s office Tuesday, thumbing through a tool box of acrylic paints. Angelo stood feet away dabbing a brown acrylic onto golden tiles, then running a forefinger across the fresh paint, smoothing her retouching into the original oil brush strokes that Winter made in the early 1930s.

You could almost outline the areas of the aptly titled City Government mural that Trombley and Angelo have repaired. The painted portraits of friends, neighbors and relatives of many still living in Gloucester now pop from the wall. A nurses’s white-collared dress seems freshly laundered, the greyed sky has morphed back to its sunny day blue.

Williams explained that we see cracks in the paint where radiator heat has harshly cracked or chipped the paint over years as well as areas where the edges of the original canvas have begun to peel back or separate in the middle of a mural that spans two canvases.

Along with the city government mural above the mayor’s office, the conservators will also repair “City Council in Session,” a mural above the tax collector’s office, and the mural “Civic Virtues” that spans two archways in the lobby area.

Conservators will also reinvigorate the mural called “Poetry” displayed above the clerks office, which could prove to be the toughest project, since it has suffered damage from a radiator located directly below it. But, said Williams, conserving these pieces is an ode to an artist whose fame has failed to match his level of skill.

”Because Winter did this kind of work —magazine illustrations and murals— his art doesn’t get sold in galleries much, and collectors don’t recognize his work, so he’s not as well known,” Williams said.

But Williams, who began his career as a paintings conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, called Winter’s work — especially the murals filled with portraits of community members — “fearless” and “ingenious.”

”Each portrait is a portrait, but also a mental state, an attitude,” Williams said.

The conservators and members of Gloucester’s Committee for the Arts encourage Gloucesterites, especially those who might recognize an older family member acting as one of the many characters in one of Winter’s murals, to venture over to City Hall and watch the work in progress.

Peel & Stick Wall Mural

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Peel & Stick Wall Mural 

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Murals of Malaysians performing various dances

Along a back lane near Jalan Sultan Idris Shah here, murals of Malaysians performing various dances are slowly taking shape – thanks to the efforts of art teacher Eric Lai.

The 37-year-old, who is leading the work with help from his students, said he was inspired to paint the murals on the back wall of three shops here after seeing similar paintings by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic in the George Town Unesco World Heritage Site.

“The murals in Penang have become a popular backdrop for photographers and tourists, and I wanted to do the same for Ipoh. The opportunity came when I was introduced to the owner of an optical shop, who also admires the works in Penang.

 On a mural painting of lion dancers.

“Not only did he invite me to paint the back wall of his shop, he has offered to pay for the materials as well,” said Lai, who declined to reveal the costs involved.

When completed, Lai’s murals will depict various people engaging in, among others, a lion dance, a kuda kepang dance and a traditional Indian performance.

“We hope to complete the four paintings before Chinese New Year. At present, my students and I can only spend about five hours daily on the wallpaper murals due to our work and study commitments,” said Lai, who is using acrylic paint for his murals.

He said he was also considering urging the Ipoh City Council to install streetlights along the back lane to deter vandals.

Wong Siew Kheong, 63, whose hardware shop was included in the project, said he decided to chip in after getting wind of the project, which started last week.

Mural paintings are the valued treasures of Kerala

Mural paintings are the valued treasures of Kerala. These fresco paintings are classified as ‘Frecco-secco'. The paintings are done on walls that are completely dry and a lime medium is used. It originated from the Dravidian art of Kalamezhuthu. This traditional painting has a history back from 9^th to 12^th century A.D.

White, yellow, black, red are the pure colors to be used as per ‘Shilparatna'. Ocher yellow, Ocher red, white, bluish green and pure green are the primary colors in Murals.

The dyes for its preparation are made out of vegetables, chemicals etc.

• White - from lime
• Black- carbon soot of lamps
• Red and yellow- minerals
• Blue- indigo ferra
• Deep red- lac

A fine coating of resin is done after the painting in order to make a shining appearance. Flat, medium and fine types of brushes are used to paint the colors. The colors are mixed in wooden utensils. The foundation is done with dung cryons and then the paintings are done.

Hindu temples also hold murals on the themes derived from the religious texts. The Kanthaloor temple and the Trivikramapuram at Thiruvananthapuram, Ajanad at Idukki have the oldest frescos in Kerala. some other places with murals are- Thiruvanchikulam (Kerala's own tradition of murals), temples at Vaikom, Ettumanoor, Thrikkodithaanam and Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple Thiruvananthapuram.

The churches in Kerala also display many murals on Christian themes. Some of them are churches at Mulanthuruthy, Chepad, Edappalli and Vechur.

The unique works of Kerala frescos provide an excellent architectural style. The deep study of it will provide one with valuable information about the art and culture of Kerala. The murals that concentrate only on icons give an incomparable beauty to it.

Help Bataclan brainstorm ideas for the mural

Bataclan was commissioned by the Igo School PTO to create a mural in the school cafeteria. But his creation is not just his own work and vision.

Unlike other artists, Bataclan works with the students to create art that becomes an extension of the school community past, present and future. During his recent presentation to students and their teachers in the school library, Bataclan provided an overview of his street art project, taught his audience how to draw some of his characters and planted a seed to spread art and happiness.

Bataclan began by asking the young students, "Do you want to draw a dog or a turtle?" He took his direction from the students and began by drawing a turtle with fifteen spots because Bataclan's birthday is Feb. 15. He shared how he often uses the magic number 15 in his artwork and encouraged students to be creative with numbers.

More questions followed such as, "do you want to draw a penguin or an octopus?" "A shark or a horse?" Each time he let the students vote by a show of hands which character to draw next. He playfully demonstrated how students can use their own first and last names for inspiration by drawing a character using the letters in his first name.

As part of his presentation, the artist shared a video clip of a story that appeared on the CBS Evening News back in 2009. In the story, reporter Michelle Miller described Bataclan's project as "Spreading hope one painting at a time." She also shares how the artist went through his own transformation during his street art project. Bataclan always leaves a handwritten note with each of his paintings.

When he first started leaving street art, his note encouraged the finder to smile more at strangers. After the recession hit, the message changed to, "Everything will be all right."

Over the past decade, Bataclan has left his paintings on Wall Street in New York City, Alaska, Las Vegas and almost half of the 50 states for lucky finders of all ages to discover.

"Sometimes, family and friends leave the paintings for me," he says, joking that "I did not travel to all of these places. I am a fulltime artist and not independently wealthy."

Bataclan moved to Massachusetts to teach at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and he is the first to say he did not plan on being a fulltime artist. He lives in Cambridge, but grew up in San Francisco where he saw a lot of street art.

No vandalism

During his recent presentation to a group of third grade students at the Igo Elementary School, he recalled, "When I was ten years of age, I started doing my own non-vandalism street art."

He followed that up by asking the students if they knew what vandalism is.

Bataclan admits that he has always been a big fan of graffiti, but he would never vandalize public or private properties. And he has always had a passion for art.

"When I was two years old I picked up a pencil and have been drawing ever since," he told his Igo audience. "It's a passion of mine."

It is Bataclan's passion for art, coupled with what first-year Igo School Principal Michael Stanton calls "Bren's tremendous ability to connect with others," that led to the artist's first visit to Foxboro. Stanton had the opportunity to meet the artist and see his murals in three elementary schools in Walpole. Stanton was the principal at the Boyden Elementary School in Walpole where Bataclan painted a mural in the computer lab with a technology-based theme.

This time around, Stanton said he met with Igo teachers and staff to discuss where the mural would be painted and ideas for a theme.

"We wanted to brighten up the walls of what used to be a high school to make it look more like an elementary school," he said.

The staff decided to adopt "The Igo Way" as the theme. Doing things "The Igo Way" is something that Stanton has introduced to the Igo School community to dovetail with their Caring School Community program.

"The Igo Way is giving it one's best every day and being kind without expecting anything in return," Stanton said. "You never know how a small act of kindness can make a big difference."

According to guidance counselor Kristen Siddle, when it came time to help Bataclan brainstorm ideas for the mural, "students focused on all the values we promote as part of the Caring School Community with a special emphasis on our own twist we call The Igo Way."

Younger students concentrated on the letters in important words such as kindness, honesty, responsibility and respect. Bataclan showed the students how even a letter can become a character. Students in the older grades got to the heart of illustrating values such as teamwork and The Golden Rule.

Bataclan looks at all the drawings students create during their workshop with him, although he cannot use all of them as part of his final creation.

His color palette of choice is the warm, tropical colors of the Philippines. In fact, Bataclan mentions on his website that he likes to collect books by Filipino-American authors and use those books as a source of inspiration for his artwork.

Smile Project

Bataclan also shares that he usually draws from the neck up and his artwork focuses on the smile.

In the summer of 2003, Bataclan began his street art installation he called "The Smile Boston Project." The project involved the artist leaving his cartoon inspired paintings for people to take for "free" all over Boston, such as on park benches, train stations, hospitals, senior centers, schools and more.

Almost 10 years later, Bataclan has left his paintings in unexpected places in 32 countries and given away 800 paintings.

And now his work can be seen at the Igo School, where he was clearly a hit with the students.

During one of the artist workshops, Stanton overheard one student tell Bataclan, "I want to be just like you when I grow up."

Bataclan looks forward to returning to Foxboro to the Taylor School in February, with a possible visit to the Burrell School in September.

The article from this:http://www.foxbororeporter.com/articles/2013/01/24/features/12827445.txt

Caron had designed and been lead painter of the large mural

At Duboce and Church, Suzie Chang took a seat on one of the bronze chairs that is part of Primitivo Suarez-Wolfe's "Domestic Seating" art installation at the corner, and noticed another art project on the site. A utility box that's a permanent fixture on the corner had been painted to reflect what's on the mural on the back side of the Safeway, diagonally across the street. If you look at the utility box at the correct angle, its design motif exactly fits in with the 340-foot-long Duboce Bikeway Mural, a large-scale scene painted on the wall (right along the Wiggle route).

Yellow Taxies In The Center Of Manhattan Wall Mural

Chang said the box, which she called "beautiful," was identified as having been painted byMona Caron. Researching, I discovered that Caron had designed and been lead painter of the large mural reflected in the perspective of the little one. She had created that Bikeway mural, said the artist, "in the far-away year of 1998. It's the mural that started my whole mural-making adventure here." Although she has painted many murals since then, she says the new little box "is my smallest ever," and the large Bikeway work, on which a few faces of that little one are based, is still her largest.

Caron created three utility boxes for the corner, "all kind of different." The one that reflects the design of the big mural has other images - a tribute to the Wiggle bike route, for instance - on other faces. Toward the bottom of its painted surface, a trompe l'oeil vegetable garden is painted so that it appears to be growing out of the sidewalk. Its perspective "is drawn in a way that it aligns perfectly with the background if you're a child's height," said Caron. "A kid will go by and see it immediately."

All three boxes were "a really tiny part of this massive capital project by Muni," the Church and Duboce Track and Street Improvement Project, said Caron. "The most important thing is that they redid the tracks for Muni, and painted a bike lane. But there was also public art," including those bronze chairs.

This article from the:http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/garchik/article/Utility-box-art-echoes-street-side-mural-4165605.php