available, so I enlisted another old friend and fellow
Scenic Artist, Jim Katranis. The mural, 40-feet by
140-feet, was to be painted in black-and-white
with a combination of oil paint for the portraits and
acrylic for the background. I usually will not mix
the two medias, but for this project it worked. We
started by using one of their empty stages to project
and make paper patterns to be transferred to the
wall. This was no small feat, being that the wall
was forty feet high and the paper was only four feet
wide. The pattern work took a week to draw and a
week to transfer to the wall, using charcoal pounces,
which gave us a clear drawing to follow, an age-old
process used all the way back to Michelangelo's
days. We spent five weeks painting and a week clear
sealing for sun protection. During the painting
process, we hired Nate Duy, a fellow Scenic
Artist, to join us. At the end, there was a dedication
ceremony for Mr. Brooks. I met him and we took
some pictures together. What an honor. I asked him
what he thought and he turned and stretched his
arms out and said in his gracious Mel Brooks tone,
"Me and MY family, WE LOVE IT!"
C
D
B
