I drew a full size tree (!!!) —
This was the ‘sketch’, the goal was to creatre a 20’ Monterey Cypress (my favorite tree at the moment) mural for this interior wall—
I’ve never done a mural of this scale before, so before the base coat was painted, I ‘sketched’ onto the wall to get a feel for the paint roller/brush and build some confidence—
My buddy Michael, who works at Studio 45, got the base coat done and was moral/mural support for the project—
After the base coat was done, I taped a pencil the pole to sketch in the main branches. I then used a roller attached to a long pole to begin drawing in my guide lines—
Once the intial lines were in, the roots were easy to fill in the handheld roller—
It seems counter intuitive, but the long pole was a lot easier than a ladder. The pole allowed me to work across the entire wall at once and step back to see what I was doing… much like drawing on paper. I found that up on the ladder I would get lost in the composition beacuse I was too close to the wall and couldn’t see what I was working on—
After the trunk of the tree was completed with the roller, I taped a brush onto the pole to get the whispy foilage effects—
I was able to complete the mural in one weekend (2 days). Approximately 16 hours of painting total—
I’m super pleased with how it turned out; I didn’t want to use any grids or projection techniques; instead trying hard to replicate my normal drawing process just on a much larger scale. This not only makes the mural a lot more fun, but it also keeps the budget down and by avoiding redrawing and other uncessary steps—
I hope to complete some more full size trees in the future, I think there is a lot of potential for murals of this style. Trees are something that lend themselves well to being scaled up this large (and maybe even larger one day…)—
Apologies for the long delay between my updates here, I was struggling keeping up with everything between tiktok, instagram, my website, newsletter, zines, fullfilling orders, making content and of course drawing the drawings themselves… but… there are lots of new items in the shop… including some very cool cypress trees—
Big thanks to everyone here, if you made it this far snag a little something on me.—
The next update will not be so far away, stay fancy my friends—
Amazing!!! Great job, Cole! 🪵
I absolutely adore your trees 🌳