One for the East Coast

Welcome to Stuart, FL. Just South of St. Lucie and about 45 minutes North of the Palm Beach area...
For me....almost exactly straight across the state from Sarasota.

To the left you see less than one half the blank canvas of my latest project. Called Osceola Place, it's a brand new mixed use building in Old Town Stuart and fronts South West Osceola St. out front and runs clear to the next street out back, SW Seminole Street. I'm not sure of it's exact measurements, but I know that I have seven of those large niches to paint, each measuring about 10 feet square and 14 of those windows, each measuring 3 x 5 feet.


Photo two is the opposite corner on SW Seminole St., which is where I started. They wall is stucco as are those dimensional decorations that define the windows and niches. Since this is a 'percent for art' project, the developer was allowed to choose the artist and the art. The city of Stuart had to approve the designs. I submitted sketches almost a year ago which were approved, although, at that time, I was only expecting to paint the smaller windows.



For this project, I'm using a special organic paint system that bonds with the stucco and will not fade, similar to what I used on the Crisp Building project in downtown Sarasota. Unfortunately, my blank canvas's had a coat of acrylic applied before I arrived and so I have to wire brush each opening and then apply a special primer so that the paint has a chance to bond to the underlying stucco.



Photo three shows the top niche completed. It depicts Chief Osceola standing with his trusty rifle on a Trompe L'oeil balcony. That diagonal black line is a phone or cable wire...there are wires everywhere back there...

Photo three is a montage of various Seminole Indian paraphernalia including a sepia tone portrait photo of the chief, an illustration of another Seminole chief, a photo of a turn of the century Seminole structure and a large rendition of an 1885 'Peace Medal' showing the image of Grover Cleveland, a frequent visitor to the Stuart area.

The basket and small doll on the upper shelf are more contemporary Seminole items.

I finally return to painting murals.......

After a bit of a stretch dealing with a couple crazy clowns, I finally got back to a somewhat 'normal' project. For this one I transformed a typically boring lanai wall into an African landscape, complete with a man-eating chicken. Really....they are basically taking over that entire continent. Oh...you haven't heard? Me either:-) See.....it's not only the clowns that are a bit crazy....

Seriously though, this project was interesting because the wall was quite rough but I was able to use it to my advantage in some areas.

As for that African man-eating chicken......well, here you see him with what's left of the homeowner...wait...

No....that's my ever present red string. I think the other end is tied to the owner...but I can't be sure.

I also did a quick woodgrain treatment to the previously white door.

Next stop....you'll be the first to find out:-)

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