Architecture
Adventures of a Mountain Painter
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Posted by Niki Fulton at 14:00 PM in Architecture
I am delighted to introduce Simon Willey of Willey Tunbridge Paint as this weeks guest blogger.
When you tell people in the UK that you paint rocks and mountains for a living they fall silent, before giving you a funny look. In the US, however, themed paintwork of this sort is big business, and there is even a specialist rock painters union.
At Celebration City, a theme park in Missouri, I was recruited to paint a large 210ft x 60ft man-made rock face, which every evening at dusk is transformed into a backdrop for laser and firework displays.
“But how do you make a mountain?” I get asked. First a structural steel frame is constructed over which a wire mesh is attached. Render is then spray applied, and as it sets, is skilfully carved by “rock carvers” to resemble rock with all its characteristic textures and fissures.
Once the render is dry, the painters and artists take charge. The surface is sealed and then spray painted with masonry paint in the chosen base colour, over which washes of colour and dry highlights are then applied to create an authentic “rock” colouring. A lot of the work is carried out from cherry pickers, (gently swaying 60 ft above the ground!) using spray guns and hoses, before applying the details by brush. The skill is to work quickly and freely and to use colour in a way that reflects nature; it was vital that the painted rock resembled the local indigenous rock and that it looked realistic from the public viewing distance.
The finished “rock face” was judged a great success and took my team just under a month to paint.
There are currently no comments on this post.
Bookmark and share this page