A Friendly Confluence

 

     

In 2015 the City of Yachats was nearing the completion of a skate board park in the Commons.

It is situated on a floor of concrete along a retaining wall that in 200 feet long.

 

skate park retaining wall

 
 

A mural project was proposed by the Friends of the Yachats Commons. It was awarded supporting grants from the Oregon Communities Foundation and the Lincoln County Cultural Colition. The mural drew its images from a set of workshop that I presented to 120 students at Waldport High School, Crestview Elementary School, the YFAAP preschool and after school programs. The theme was the primal elements; earth, water, fire and air. I encouraged simple images,showing photos of plants, animals of the land and sea, and asked for self portraits in action. I also showed examples of the graphic from the Eel River Salmon Project, petroglyphs, and paintings by Keith Harring and Glenn Berry.

 


 

 

 

 
 

To design the mural, I photographed the drawings and moved individual objects into a Photoshop file that is in scale to the mural wall. There are about 230 layers of the object in the final graphic.

Here is a collection of birds from the student drawings.

 

 

When moved to the mural file, I selected colors, fills, sizes and layered each into the scape of the design. Here is a section of that file. The design graphic was approved by the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Yachats City Council.

 

 
 

After grinding, priming and filling holes on the surface, I started laying out the mural, scaling up an outline printout of the design file.

 
 

Over the course of the summer I painted the project, with the help of 30 volunteers.

 
 

Here is a sequence of photos showing the complete mural from the right end to the left end. The panels are twenty feet long.

 

 
 

A title plaque was painted to discribe the project and participants.

 

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