Mural Painting Experience

For years I stuck with my pen and planner doing doodles and random drawings. I learned how to paint during the Summer Arts Workshop of the Gallery of the Peninsula and Archipelago under the master painter himself, Mr Rameer Tawasil. I produced 3 paintings during that class and I haven't practice my painting skill afterwards.

I'm glad to have this opportunity to join a Mural Painting competition organized by the Rotary Club of Zamboanga City so i can paint again and have it in a public place where people can see my work. My goal was not to win but to create something that is not typical poster-looking mural and produce use a style that has not been used in contests like this.

Day 1 Started with the Opening Program with and some officers of EAAB and Rotary Club. There was also a marching band for musical scoring. 11 Groups were there and we drew lots for the location of our mural. We hope to pick somewhere between A to D which is located in front of Chowking Camins. Unfortunately we got J! Which is near the end. But, my spirits were still high and i realized its a pretty good location. We started by cleaning our wall and painting it with the primer or white coat. It was soo tiring!

Day 1: Removing the "kalburo" and coating the primer

My first time to use the roller :D

Checking out the planes behind our wall :D So fun ^_^

Being a graphic designer and digital illustrator, i created the design digitally in Adobe Illustrator. Here's the line art of our design.

We printed the wireframe in long bondpapers and traced it with carbon paper at the wall. It's a long a tedious process but it's the only way we can think of to transfer the design to the wall. We thought of projecting the design to the wall but its dangerous to setup the projector in the middle of the street with lots of vehicles passing by. It took three long days just to make the line art but its worth it. The sketch looked perfect!

Day 2: Tracing. Look how my skin looks still fresh.

Day 3: Still sketching. Two new groups joined and one was assigned beside us. 

Look they started painting already! The pressure!

End of Day 3: Sketch done! Gotta start to paint!

We started painting a few hours before day 3 ended. We realized how hard it is to combine colours to achieve what's in the original design. All of us has few experience in painting so we're far behind in painting than the other groups. The teams beside us are Architecture students and we're impressed with their speed in working. They almost finished half of their work and we're still starting. We realized with the speed of our painting skills and the time left, we will not finish this mural on time. So decided to extend working late til the evening.

Day 4: In one day this is what we produced. And we only got 3 days left!

Roadside dinner, literally! Look how dark i am already XD

It's already 9pm and out of nowhere the organizer came and told us to stop working already. We are not allowed to stay after 9pm. But the night before we saw some groups working up to 10PM that's why we decided to do it, too. The day after, the organizer announced that the deadline will be extended with one more day but we must stop working after 7:30PM. It was a sigh of relief.

Day 7 came and the other teams are putting their finishing touch and we're half-way to finishing it. We made sure we got our colors right every time so we will not ruin the color harmony originally designed. With a little getting used to, we started to speed up our painting and learned more techniques along the way.

Day 8: Before and after working. haha XD

Day 9 came and we have to finish it. I lack sleep and almost exhausted physically and emotionally with the pressure of the sight of other contestants who already finished their work. I didn't lose hope and tried my best to finish the artwork before the deadline, 5pm. Unfortunately, deadline came and we still have the border and some details unfinished yet. All the contestants stopped working and we were all invited for a merienda at Aristocrat Restaurant. Someone said to my team that we can still finish our work after the break and so we did put the final touches.


We added some refective stickers for the border in a form of tribal pattern and embellishments like sticker crystals. We also used neon poster colors for the mosque, cathedral, flower and bird. Only our team used other medium aside from paint. I hope the judges will appreciate our creativity.

 Hooray! It's done!

I look like a zombie -_-

Just as we thought things are going good, a member from another team approach and told us that their team and ours will have 10 point deduction for working after the deadline. My jaw dropped. And i wan to shout "We should have been informed a little sooner! Thanks a lot!!!". But im not that type of person so its OK. :) My only goal from the start was to put my art on a public place so people can see it. This is something that me and my team will be proud of. Many may not "get" our artwork but only a person with taste and appreciation for "pop modern hip and fun" art with attention to minute details will share our love with this work. :"D

A lot of thanks to my talented nocturnal group mates who tried to keep up with me waking up early 6 in the morning. They tried, really. Most of them have summer classes and gave their all to make a quality work of art with me. A big thanks to Wella, Lance, Meryll and Jolas. We called ourselves"The Losers" and i decided to change it just now to "Team Graphika" to aviod further shame. Haha.

 Team Haggard!

Mama, Papa and Aunty Merlinda

Of course, thanks to my ever supportive family, to Papa, Mama, and my brothers, Aljo and Mark, and Aunty Merlinda. You guys are the best! And winning this competition is nothing than having people like you in my life :') Cheers! Here's the final look of our mural :D

I really enjoyed this week and hope you'll see this up close at Gov. Camins Ave. and see every detail. Click on photo for larger view :D