I've done plenty interior wall paintings and a few barn sides in my day, but this old alley brick wall was my first with an uneven surface to contend with. The objective was to produce a simple but effective sign for a jewelery store without infringing upon his allowed sign allotment. Generally, symbols trump words anyway. In this case it's absolutely true...
To start the project, I rented a 3000 psi pressure washer from my local hardware. It managed to remove most of the loose paint, but also managed to eat into some of the actual brick and mortar. A little less pressure was needed. I then used a gallon of high quality semi-gloss and a 3/4" nap roller to coat out the area in need. The next day I went to work masking the shape out.
Back at the shop I prepared the stencil using my 40" vinyl cutter and a roll of vinyl paint mask. I was somewhat apprehensive about attempting to use this product on the uneven surface, but it was a nice sunny warm day and the material stretched a bit as I massaged it into the low spots.
This picture (above) shows the first layer stencil applied.
This picture (above) shows the second layer mask applied. A couple pieces were left out, ready to paint!
An odd color pallet for me, but to achieve a translucent quality it was necessary to use pastels. Wal-Mart had a nice selection of spray paint that day!
I added some diagonal highlights into all the individual color blocks to indicate a see-through prismatic element.
Back-masking was needed so I didn't contaminate my previous work.
This picture (above) shows a final mask layer allowing me to spray a shaddowing effect. This helps to bring out the light colors off the wall.
All the mask removed. Almost there. Just the freehand highlights and a darker outline to make it pop.
Believe it or not, the further you get away from it, the better it looks. From close up it seems a bit washed out, but from the street it's quite an eye catcher.
Many thanks to David Mann Jewelers of Geneseo for the opportunity to expand my portfolio. I'm certain it will drum up some conversation among the locals.
