Its hot up there, but I would DEFINITELY take heat over the constant wind.  Not both.  I can’t use my expensive larder of spraypaint (I had planned on) because the paint just gets shoved right up into the stratosphere to never pigment evermore.  That said, the mural is progressing like I would have hoped.  Some things are moving slower, some faster, but overall I would go on record saying I am slightly behind.  I have went ahead in exactly the opposite order than I had planned…I will now do the shadow LAST, and everything else first. But that will be super fun because it “pops” already, but with the shadow, it will look so believable.  I can’t wait to do that!

Here is a timelapse from today:

timelapse painting of female opiliones

I started off using about 30 fat lumber marking crayons, which worked great, and had to outline the odd shapes and abstract nature of the Opiliones skewing long.  They are stretched so that the viewers at the observation level of the Space Needle will see a believable 3D illusion.

I made models and photographed them on site at about 1pm to get their shadows.

And when it came time to paint, I laid down a thick dark brown coat of paint that would be my silhouette.  Even with a few legs painted…no details, no highlights, no shadow, they looked amazingly alive and 3D.  Very reassuring and overall it is turning out better than I could have hoped.  Especially from my eavesdropping on passersby at the observation level…everyone seems to notice and get who they are up there with to look at the “spiders”.  Lots of kids showing their parents.  I love it.