"On the Banks of the Wabash" - painting a mural

Mom and I have begun a creative project together - painting a 17 foot mural depicting Lafayette, West Lafayette, Purdue, and the rural landscape of Indiana corn fields on the dining room wall of Friendship House, the senior housing residence that she now calls home.  It's a project that has been in the planning for several months, ever since the director of Friendship House asked mom, who is known as the "resident artist" here, if she could paint a mural that the residents would enjoy. She said she wouldn't do it by herself, but if we could do it together she would.  We decided it would be our gift to Friendship House - a very special place.

I created a sketch 1/5 the size of the wall from photos that I took of the area back in March.  Many of the residents are from this area and we wanted to create scenes of familiar places.  Yesterday we taped the sketch and several of the photos in strategic places on the wall and drew the scene with chalk.  Today we started painting, mom the foreground and me the sunrise sky, horizon and the Wabash River.

We are weary, but excited to get up early tomorrow morning and continue where we left off.  The challenge will be to continue working while interested and interesting residents want to talk!  The weekend was a good time to get started, and tomorrow we're planning to get an early start before the lunch crowd begins to assemble.

I'll post photos of the progress - "back home in Indiana!"