The wall

I got started on this mural this week:

These are the rough draft in chalk. It will all eventually be painted white with black outlines.

And you can’t tell from these shots, but this is up a couple flights of exterior stairs, probably something like 20 feet off the ground. So when I’m on the high ladder doing the parts in the middle, with nothing behind me but a lot of space, it’s…interesting.

It doesn’t matter how securely wedged the ladder is, my brain is still basically saying, “Mmmm, no.”

The wind that picks up in the afternoon doesn’t help either!

It was also interesting to realize I had been avoiding this mural. I thought I was so excited to do it (and I am) but that there kept being very practical reasons that I couldn’t get to it: weather, show deadlines, family visits.

After a few months, though, I had to check myself and discovered a bad thought in there: I was thinking it would be “painted in stone.” Meaning it would be permanent, and had to be perfect. When the truth is, murals like this are very forgiving, and if it gets screwed up, I can always just paint right over it. At worst I might have to sand a little.

Once I got that thought out of the way, I was able to immediately get the last few materials, get it drawn in chalk, and now today I got the first layer of paint on. I plan to finish by the middle of next week.

So this week, here’s to finding those sneaky thoughts that stop you…and here’s to getting them right out of your way!