Danville Dog Gone Dandy

What is up with this crazy title?

On August 5th - 8th, 2010 over one hundred and fifty artists will travel to Danville, IL from as far away as New Zealand to take part in the "Danville Dog Gone Dandy - Walldog Event. I will be leading one of 15 mural projects at this event. Instead of a long drawn out explanation of the Walldog phenomenon, I will just direct you to the website if you would like more info....

http://www.thewalldogs.com

I decided to do a few posts in honor of the upcoming mural event in case anyone comes across this blog and has an interest? Since I am in the middle of preparing for this event, I thought I would create a series of posts on what it takes to paint a large scale exterior mural.

Let me try and explain what has happened up to this point. The person or committee who is responsible for organizing the mural event basically does a lot of the up front work. They tour the city or town where the event is going to take place and look at sites that might work for a historically based mural. At the same time the person organizing the event might be thinking of who might be crazy enough to lead one of these projects. Usually the Walldog (Letterhead member) organizing the show, makes suggestions or matches particular artists with the themes being painted. In this case a fella named of Cornbread is working with the good people of Danville to organize this particular event.

Anyhoooo, I'm not sure how I was selected to lead a project, probably drew my name out of a hat? But I am honored to be leading another mural at this Summer's main Walldog event. A while back they sent me site location photos and size of the wall I was to design the art for. My theme ended up being the Danville Balloon Classic hot air balloon event. I was first told that my wall was 65 feet tall and 30 feet wide!!! Then, after closer inspection, the wall was determined to be just 29 feet wide by 40 feet tall!!!! And here I thought it was going to be a big wall???

I took the photos and info they sent me and transformed it into the art below...





So now that I have the art approved, I need to start thinking about what to bring along to complete this rather large painting. First thing that I know I need, no matter what I am doing, is MUSIC! Can't do nothin' without good tunes. About 6 years ago I decided to build a somewhat portable set of speakers for my iPod. I had purchased a set of Altec Lansing 100 watt powered computer speakers for home use and thought they would work well for mural painting on the road also. I went ahead and purchased a second set for the road!

Below is the contraption I came up with...





I actually started out with two old wooden speakers and mounted them together end to end. I then found and old repair case that had a pop-up handle and wheels. I snatched those off the old case and added them to the speaker box. I cut the one end off the wooden box just big enough to house the satellite speakers. The sub woofer ended up going in the other side of the wooden box. The unit is powered by my iPod and includes a remote control for volume adjustment.



I actually have a 60 gig iPod that I usually use with this but it isn't here at the moment.....needed at work. So, I just wheel this out to the mural site, open it up and plug it into the closest outlet. It charges the iPod as it plays and I just grab the remote for volume control and I'm ready to paint!



This box has played in New England.....up yonder in Mazeppa, MN and around the Midwest and Great Lakes. Who knows where we're headed next? Oh yeah, Danville!



Next time I post we will look at some other equipment and tools that need to be packed up for the event. We will also need to go over what art needs to be brought along to accomplish this task.

For know, fare ye well.