BUMP Roadworks: Part 1

BUMP Road Works’ weather window is closed again as it’s snowing/ super windy for the majority of the week, then it won’t be warm enough until likely Tuesday, Apr 28. So in the meantime, here are notes from my first three days of painting!

Sunday, Apr 19: Primed 2 coats per barrier x 4, burned back of neck. 3.5 hours of work

Monday, Apr 20: Picked up paints, 3 yellow coats per barrier x 2, freehanded outlines on 1 barrier, started blocking out purple silhouettes and testing teal accents, started coating purple (beginning of my costly mistake), sprayed sunscreen every hour. 6.5 hours of work

Tuesday, Apr 21: Continued coating purple base (noooooo), freehanded outlines on 2 more barriers, tested yellow on purple too late, wasted time being mad about it, started blocking out purple silhouettes, wore a bandana to save time spraying sunscreen. 7 hours of work

Oh how we wished these were all pre-primed. I primed like a maniac to get it over with

For context, 3 coats of yellow for 2 barriers took 2.5 hours. Meanwhile, my neighour Justin finished one side of a barrier in less time with spray paint

Testing out teal accents before continuing with re-coating the purple silhouettes (3 coats needed)

The original plan was to coat the purple barriers completely, so I wouldn’t have to do painstaking detailing around silhouettes later on. I’ve used yellow paint that’s gone nicely over dark paint, so I thought this would be similar

Dumbly, I didn’t test out the yellow on purple on the first purple barrier before I coated the second purpled barrier…freehanding these silhouettes has been really fun, tho. It helps me not be 110% tied to the original digital designs

You can’t really tell in the photo, but the yellow-on-purple was coated 3 times and still had a green tinge. To pivot, I’ll have to re-prime my yellow silhouettes (2 coats) before putting on the yellow (3 coats). I might also buy a different brand of paint for the yellow

There usually comes a time during a project where I hate everything I’m doing, ha. Tuesday was that tipping point. The more I stared at my colours, the more I thought the yellow was too lemon-y (not warm enough) and the maroon was too dark. Once the yellow-on-purple test failed, my mind went into self-berating mode. I was probably dehydrated and tired from the relentless sun. I’d forgotten how physically demanding painting murals can be, and my body was wiped after two and a half days.

Trying to not burn my face. This Calgary sun feels wayyyyy more intense than west coast sun

Backside of barriers at the end of day two

It’s a good thing we’re getting a weather window break! I’ve had time the past couple of days to rest up and reset my brain and my feelings of inadequacy. I washed all my brushes, because a week is too long to leave them in their plastic wrap and they might dry up. Turns out I didn’t wash them well enough so over half of them dried up anyway, and I’ll need to buy more.

Brushes take forever to clean. I set up an assembly line of wet wipes and clean-to-dirty water, and that big bucket is now sitting outside under the eaves. Once the water evaporates or at least the paint settles, I can filter out the water and empty the paint dredges into the trash

Meanwhile, I have quite a bit of screen-based work to take care of before I go back to the paint site again. I’ll have more pics once these barriers are done! I tried taking videos for “content”, and I just can’t.

Apropos of nothing: Little haul from the library today! Inspired by me crying while watching Our Planet II on Earth Day

Isn’t Mo the best <3

Until next time,

Ann