Scorpion Skies

Finally!!! After nine months (on and off working, you know) I am so very excited to present my completed living room wall mural to you…

I knew that this project was going to take many months to complete so I knew that I would want to take pictures of it to show the murals progress. I also thought that it would be fun to use these photos as profile pictures on my Facebook account. And so I began…

… with the very first circle!

As each photo was taken, I slowly started moving my camera farther away…

…to show more and more of the wall space as it began to fill out.

HA! Then this idea came into my mind – to make it look like I was pushing the picture frame outwards. I think this is hilarious!!!

Oh! Goodness!! My, aren’t I getting all philosophical!?

I knew that it would get boring if I just kept pushing the border outwards so I began to think of a small story line that I could enact as the rest of the mural unfolded.

As you can see… I really started having some fun! This idea came about simply because at this point in the painting all the planets and moons had just been outlined.

I look like an ape, in this pic! Even though I had been knocked off my feet, I had to get back up again to fulfill my destiny…

…and complete this mural.

There! Done! Finally! Looks great!!!!

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The Design…

When I began, I was inspired to create something fun and interesting – something that would explode with spontaneous life cuz I was going to start and finish it in just three days!!!!

I started thinking about a plant – very wild – painted in large sweeping strokes, slightly curved and abstract like. After I had sketched it, I noticed that the leaves of my plant kinda looked like moons – at about a quarter to full. Then I thought that if I made them into planets instead, that I could then paint their moons to kinda look like the fruit of this galactic plant! I realized that I was now designing a painting of our solar system!!

I made three rules for the design. 1) The planets would all touch – so that the finished result did look like a plant. 2) I would kinda size the planets to scale - I made 3 sizes: small, medium and large. 3) I would research and paint the same number of moons around each planet that actually exist.

The Textures…

My last blog talks about that (just scroll down this page to find that story).

The Title…

Many surprises presented themselves during the creation of this mural. Things that I had not original thought of, but realized their significance, after the fact! Noticing the ‘fingerprints’ in the planets is just one example – with the related connection to the Creator of all of life… which seems fitting in a painting of this nature.

The title for this painting was born of a similar experience. Once all the planets had been outlined with a few rows of paint, I stepped back and noticed something interesting.

The planets looked like a scorpion! Jupiter and Saturn – the two largest planets – look like the body of the scorpion… body and feet. The scorpion is walking around the outer ring of the sun, cuz only two feet are touching it (the only two points touching the outer ring) and the other two feet are in the process of continuing the walk.

Mars looks like the joining link – joining the rest of the tail with the body. Mercury is the tip (small stinger) of the tail and Venus and Earth are the tail. Uranus is the neck of the scorpion and Neptune is the head. Pluto is the mouth and it’s offset from the middle of the head cuz it’s leaning in closer to you to whisper something marvelous and mind expanding into your ear!!!!

Since the planets exist in the ‘skies’ and the planets look like a ‘scorpion’ you can see how I created this painting’s title. It’s also very fitting to have this being in my home cuz Joanne is a Scorpio, so in a way I painted this with subconscious thoughts about my wife… which is always a good thing!

Thanks for sharing these many experiences with me.

I hope that you have enjoyed this project!!!

Jim