Painting the American Flag

I am painting the American flag on our propane tank. The U.S. flag has always held a warm space in my heart. I was taught to respect our nation’s flag as a beautiful symbol of freedom. It always reminds me of the Olympics. So, as I start on this project it is important that I get the painting right to show how lovely our flag looks as it moves in the wind.

Looking at the tank last evening and then while walking down to the tank this morning I have decided to change that fold near the blue and stars. I am not seeing the flowing movement that I want in the flag fabric and the stars are bugging me because they are not very consistent in size.

No worries though, because we can change anything we want as long as there is a paintbrush in hand. I will change the stars area into a slight wave in the fabric instead of the fold keeping the fold on the right side with red and white stripes. That should do it. I need to move the blue part a little more to the left and widen the first white stripe into an easier bend. Adjustments!

I mask off new locations in more consistent sizes. Masking allows freedom to freely paint the shadows and highlights of the flag fabric without worrying about messing up the stars. Applying masking tape strips to cover where the stars should be, then marking a star outline using a sharpie, followed by using an Exacto knife. Wa La!

The real painting begins, making adjustments to the layout and mixing paints to get highlight where the flag reaches out. I have to pay close attention to where light and shadow should happen. Add shadow where the flag tucks into a wave base or continues after a fold. The right side of the tank will have a red stripe leading off into the back. I decide to add a shadow around all the stars while the masking tape is still there, hoping to get them stand out.

Lastly I remove the masking tape covering where the stars are to be. Then carefully paint white in the stars and we are finished.

Moose “A” Beauty Makeover

Moose “A”

Witness the changes as we give Mr. Moose “A” his beauty makeover. This miner is looking for gold in the hills of Chewelah WA. Initially, he appears sporting a pair of patched blue jeans with red suspenders with his yellow miner hat. Miner Moose is a little large, okay VERY large, and extending well beyond the edges of our table. I have to pay attention to drop cloth placement for this guy today. Doesn’t he seem like he is worried, as he lays on the table waiting for a “new look” after all his repairs?

moose A 02 ready for paint

First, his moose antlers are created with a light gray background that is shaped by working darks and lights into the wet paint for the different rounded horn surfaces.

Fur

moose A 03 fur moose A 04 fur

Similarly, the next step is to cover his fur with a basic brown. I pull out 3D shapes in his body and face, by using combinations of red, blue, and yellow in the wet paint. Mustn’t forget his hind legs showing at the base of his pants.

Blue Jeans

moose A 05 blue jeans

Next, I apply blue to the jeans followed by their highlights in white. If, while I am working, I have a color on my brush and notice an area that needs it, I simply apply it right then. You will notice that I like to use blue to make surfaces show more in the distance or shadow. With that goal in mind, blue applied to the eyes, leg backs, nose, and around his ear.

Green Burlap Bag

moose A 07 damage gone moose A 08 damage less

The addition of a significant change as I add a small green burlap bag to hold gold treasures along his beltline, which eliminated the suspenders. This should draw attention to his middle body region instead of his legs. Just maybe, if the majority of the pokes are on his body center, it is possible that his spindly legs will stand a better chance at survival.

Moose Face

moose A 09bag moose A 08 face His eye and face are re-created here along with his little yellow “miner” hat, which is put in without the light.

moose A 08 damage less moose A 07 damage gone

Stepping back, I examine “A’s” makeover progress. While I can still see some of the screw holes from the repairs from a few angles. Honestly they are not all that noticeable when you step back. It is amazing what a good coat of paint does, isn’t it?

Gold Treasures

moose A 11 gold ready to glue moose A 12 gold pebbles

Now it is time for the finishing touch in our Moose “A” makeover! The gold treasures are placed in his bag, and he is ready for his final sealing coat. He is all new and ready to go back home to his place up on the hill.

moose A & B done

There is a series of animal sign characters that were repaired for the ski hill up at 49 Degrees North in Chewelah WA.

Leggy Frog Miner Sign

Frog Sign

The leggy frog miner is a relaxed and smiling green dude with large feet, He wears a yellow gold miner’s hat and red pants. If we were to see a frog, mining for a living, this is the character we would see. It is obvious that the damages this amphibian has sustained over the years consist of concentrated target areas.

Ribbett Ribbitt Said the Frog

Are there amphibians on the hill? Is there water on the hill, oh yes!

frog 02 damages

Extent of Damage

Both the left side of our frog body and his eye are showing massive wear-and-tear. I don’t have pictures of him, but I remember him having a back pocket with a sling-shot protruding, which is now missing. There remain only two slight bumps at his pant line and near his hand. That sling-shot must have been a target area for little skiers to poke. Additionally, more than half of his right eye is missing as the wood has been worn off the right side of his face. It is safe to assume that this guy has been poked in the eye several times.

frog 03 repair plan

Changing Traffic Patterns

Re-routing the poke traffic seems a high priority for this leggy frog if he is going to be able to survive a while. If he were to be holding a gold nugget, which is a natural draw, on the central part of his body then he would be able to withstand the blows better. Additionally, to be able to put his eye back in I will have to shift his face slightly to the right to give us room .

frog 04 repair frog 05 face

Using yellow, green, and blues I begin making close portions light and further-away areas dark. A three-dimensional impression results. Yellow spot freckles line his back and accentuate his smile. White eyebrows and blue outlines brighten his eyes.

Our frog’s pant line is lowered to allow more room to show his arm over his mid section. I decide to make his pants red and blue flannel with his blue sneakers, just because. He is ready for his gold nugget to be glued in after a small slingshot is put in his back pocket.

frog 06ready for nugget

One of the most important changes in this character’s repair is a distraction. Our froggy miner holding a gold nugget in his hand attracts damages to occur in a more central location. Here is a picture of the nugget freshly hot-glued in place before sign sealing. Hopefully, a central location will make it possible to withstand the forces of ski pole pokes with more stability.

frog 07 gold nugget

Taking a step back gives a better perspective of this green guy’s fascination with his newly found nugget. The expression passes the test.

frog 09 frog looks at nugget

Another step back shows our leggy frog dude body finished and ready to go back up on the ski hill.

frog 08 complete

Foxy Miner Sign

Foxy Miner Sign

This red foxy miner looks like he is saying, “Aw, Shucks!” with his thumbs tucked behind his yellow suspenders. He must have a bag of gold nuggets stashed at the lodge. You can see that he has some damage around edges and at the base of his feet. He has minimal pokes all over his body in random areas with no specific areas concentrated on. With this in mind, my repair will concentrate on patching more than repainting the entirety of this foxy character.

No Stranger to Foxy Characters

This is not the first time I have painted fox images, the wiley fox is a character that has fascinated me from early days as an artist. One of my first watercolors was of, “Two Foxes“. Following is a link to the actual definition of the fox specie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox

Fox Repairs

Starting off with the fox repair white areas, I paint his miner hat lamp, then eye ovals, his tail tip, and then the space between his legs. Many times, when patching white areas it takes more than one coat to fill in and get full coverage.

Next in sequence are his yellow suspenders, and yellow helmet and I notice that the new layer of paint is much brighter.

Yellows, Orange, and Reds

Keeping yellow on the brushes I am able to start on the fox body areas. To attain a 3D effect I begin with the lighter yellow (more upfront) areas, gradually blending oranges and reds into the further away surfaces. His nose is definitely upfront along with his arms and hands over his chest. Additionally, I accentuate the top of his tail, top of his left foot, and the big toe and ball of his right foot or paw that is facing us. The most needed is where his tail meets the elbow and shirt areas.

Down to Details

Now I am down to finishing the details on our fox with black, white, and his green shirt. Luckily, I discovered that I needed to let him dry before completing all of his details as there are too many edges wanting to bleed together. Consequently, the fox is placed on the table to dry with the raccoon and bear.

You may notice that his eyes are darkly outlined in black, well, those eyes being outlined like that call to me every time I walk past. They are looking wide open and scared instead of friendly and happy. This is not what I had in mind for him.

Many of the changes needed to my art are discovered in this manner. I hang it and walk away, and then the next time I see it something reaches out and grabs me. Fortunately, you just keep noticing it more and more every time you walk by till you change it.

Fox Rabbit 10 finished

Correcting his eyes and exaggerating the darkness between elbow and tail along with accentuated fur around ears and eyes and the addition of polka dots to his suspenders completes the details. Here he is drying on the table with the rabbit. the Mr. Foxy Miner Sign Character is all finished and ready to greet people on the hill again.

Sandwich Board Sign Repair

Repairing Surfaces

lessons sign sanding 1 The sandwich board is laid flat out on the table ready to sand. You can see that it has been used quite a long time with 3 to 4 layers of different stuff. I even ended up using a grinder to get the glue-on letters off so that the sign paint would adhere without blistering.

lessons sign sanding 2

Recycling

This is a sandwich board sign needing repair for 49 Degrees North Ski Resort. It is used on the lower walkway to assist lost people going to their ski and snowboard lessons. The rub-on lettering says, “Never skied, Welcome.” I vaguely remember that sign on the hill years and years ago.

lessons sign snowflakes 1

Snowflakes

The request was for blue snowflake pattern on the sign with wording same on both sides. Some of my best friends are flakes, but, I still had to look up snowflakes. I was pleasantly surprised by how much geometry is involved with drawing them. They are six sided gems and quite beautiful how they reflect lights. Check paper snowflake instructions here… I enjoyed looking at actual pictures of real snowflakes to prepare good looking flakes.

lessons sign snowflake closeup

I went with a basic bright white background for the sandwich board sign. Using light blues and touches of magenta, rendering 2 snowflakes, one large and one smaller on opposing corners. Using a small sponge dabbed into white and blue helped make snowflakes appear as a texture around the border and randomly in the center.

lessons sign snowflakes

Lettering

The wording and arrows were painted in simple black. By the way, lettering is not something I do often. It has been 30 years since sign lettering was even a weekly project for me. I didn’t take any chances and opted to trace the letters onto the board first. You can see the pencil outlines in these pictures. Honestly, any self-respecting sign painter would not be caught dead outlining the letters like this.

lessons sign snowflakes w/ background

lessons sign snowflakes wording penciled

For a 2-sided sign, I had been reminded to reverse the arrows, but promptly forgotten it. After finishing, I got surprised. One side of the sign told me to go one way and the other side told me the opposite. Ooooops! Consequently, I had to reverse one side’s arrow heads to correct this.

lessons sandwich sign 1 lessons sandwich sign 2

Sometimes, my memory goes missing when I least expect it, but luckily, most things can be fixed!

Shovel-Packing Bluebird

Shovel Packing Miner

This sign is a shovel-packing bluebird with a large orange beak who is ready to find his own gold mine. Spending some time on the internet I tried to identify what type of bird he must be. I was not able to find him, but, there are really interesting things about birds to check out if you are interested in amazing beaks on birds.

bluebird sign drying This bluebird sign is in need of quite a bit of repair since he has had a lot of traffic on the trails. The first thing we do is sand him on both sides, seal the back with a coat of white paint and let him dry.

Standing Mr. Orange beak bluebird up alongside the table edge shows me that he is still stable and intact on the bottom, even though there appears to be a lot of damage.

bluebird sign vertical

He got hits all over!

bluebird sign on table

After lifting him up onto the tabletop I begin to see the details of his damaged edges and surfaces. It is evident that his claw feet are simply worn away on the bottom edge. Along the right side, his shovel handle has become quite uneven with repeated ski pole pokes. I won’t worry about the rough edges for these though, as both claws and shovel handles can be uneven and no one will notice.

Face and Neck Repairs

bluebird sign close face

Now, our bluebird has damages that require some creative redesign and crafty changes. Wear and tear show on his neck, his left eye, and the light bulb on his helmet. I believe I can remove his mining helmet and use that upper area for his blue head instead. This will allow me to move his face to the right enough to be able to give him his eye back. Artistic tweaking.

Bluebird Back and Tail

His body was back and all his feathers got traffic but his lowest feather got the worst of it. The bluebird needs lots of paint.

bluebird sign close tail

Beginning with his bluebird tail feathers and the rest of his body, then proceeding to orange claw feet and beak. Browns are next for the shovel handle and gray for the shovel. I put highlights on wings and body, purposely making them rougher looking to help disguise the damage and uneven surfaces.

Using black and white paint to repair his eyes and the space between him and his shovel, the last touches are complete. I hit any highlights or shadows that seem lacking in other areas at the same time.

bluebird sign dry with raccoon

The final adjustment is taking his beak right across his eye in the rear, which gives a better representation of 3D with its overlapping. Another last-minute item was the addition of some orange eyebrows. bluebird sign finished Our shovel-packing bluebird with a large orange beak is finished and sealed, ready to go back up on the hill and be discovered by those skiing the trails. Another of the fun animal character signs at the best family ski resort, 49 Degrees North Ski Resort in Chewelah WA.

Gold Panning Bear

Damage Assessment

bear panning gold before This gold panning bear is grinning happily because he has some gold nuggets in his pan. He has had a lot of interaction with the kids on the hill over the past ten years. Honestly, his gold pan is completely empty, so, it is logical to assume that gold nuggets are an intense natural target area.

bear Gold Panning Initially Initially, we had placed him in the “trash” stack because his right leg was gone! But, I see minor damages on edges and scattered across his interior body, so he catches my attention again.

Barely a Second Chance

bear panning gold face & hat

Looking at this poor gold panning bear dude a second time an idea comes to me. We could change his standing position to a kneeling one. This would require only minimal grinding and painting. Hopefully, this will work. If it does, there will be one more animal character returning to the kid’s trails up on the mountain

Gold Pan Bear Repairs

First, I seal this gold panning bear’s green hat and edges along with any random poke holes in this color area.
The second repair area, is the whites in his eyes and teeth and then switching to black doing the same.

Third, I get out the blues and work on his blue jeans figuring out the best shape to make him kneel. The trick being, to try and make the trimming at the base simple yet strong as possible.

Fourth, his gold pan needs a new shadow and some bright highlights to be ready to discover some gold. We start with pan paint still wet and sprinkle in some glitter to give the pan some shine. Then blue dots are added to his red suspenders over where the holes are from getting poked. Nothing wrong with filling the dents in if I can.

bear gold pan glitter
Fifth, all of the brown fur areas needs repainting to fill in pokes and accentuate the highlights and darks to bring them back alive. Then, we cut the bottom of the sign off all even and paint in his blue jeans as if he is kneeling on a rock by a stream.

bear gold pan upper body

Foremost in my mind is a desire to direct the anticipated damage to a more durable area on the animal. The gold pan is low and centrally located and the gold pebbles were all taken that were glued there a decade ago. So, the logical solution is to make that gold pan a real attractive area, with shine and gold again. bear gold panning nuggets be4ar gold pan nuggets

Our happy gold panning bear is all done, ready to return to the trees on the hill! Would you like to learn a little about gold panning?

Nervous Bear Skiing

Animal Character Sign

This nervous bear is learning to ski and he needs repair. His major damage is not very obvious, he does have poke holes in scattered places the with the majority of them being the ski pole and claw area. But, he is missing half of his back ski. I wonder how many people notice that half of that ski is gone?

Bear Repair Process

Bear Skiing Sign 02

First, I paint the bear fur in browns using a red tint to bring some surfaces closer.

Colors Change

Bear Skiing Sign 03

This close shot shows how a warm red tint tends to draw his front leg closer to our eyes. In contrast, an addition of a cool blue makes a shadow appear pushing his other leg back away from us. Isn’t it amazing to move areas with just a small addition of different colors? Art is cool.

Drying

Bear Skiing Sign 04

Various blue accessories are painted, including his small blue neck warmer, ski’s and pole and then he is set to dry. Not everything can be done on wet surfaces. I am needing a completely dry surface to apply details.

Details

Bear Skiing Sign 05

Working on camouflaging the bear’s missing ski problem I use his ski pole to diffuse attention as we visually separate the skis. The ski pole basket is deliberately located right at the intersection point of the two skis. Hopefully, this will cause a distraction resulting in effectively blurring the area between the two ski surfaces. The best-case scenario is a redirection of the viewer’s attention away from the bear’s back paw being located too far back on the ski. With an ounce of distraction, the artist becomes a magician. Bet you didn’t know that.

Bear Skiing Sign 06

Continuing, with black outline details that exaggerate his wide-open expression I add shadows above and below the eyes and his face transforms.

Bear Skiing Sign 07 Likewise, his mouth line makes-ready for later additions of his tongue and sweat. Why? Because I plan to make him have a really nervous expression as learns to ski. A similar expression to the little people that will be poking at him later on the beginner ski trails.

Finishing

Bear Skiing Sign 08
Now, he is drying on the table. Even though he is a nervous wreck as he learns to ski he will be ready to go play with the other kids learning. Having fun on the trails up at 49 Degrees North Ski Resort in Chewelah WA.

Snowshoe Rabbit

This poor snowshoe rabbit holds a pickax on his way to look for gold in, “them-there-hills”. In the past decade, he has received a lot of damage. The majority of the hits are on his paw holding the pick and the paw below. Similarly, the cheeks, mouth, ear, nose, and eyes have gotten their fair share. Repairing this character is a real art challenge, but hang in there, because his transformation will amaze you.

Animal Tracks

This critter is one of the types making those footprints that you see in the snow when you are going up the lifts on chairs 1 & 4 because you get close enough to the ground to see them there. It is kind of amazing how far they can jump, even in deep snow. Do you wonder what bunny tracks look like in the snow? Check them out here.

rabbit sign 02
It is obvious that this fluffy furry guy is mostly whites with a few facial, ears, and tool shapes scattered here & there. I can not use white straight out of the can. So, I’ll give you clues about tinting whites differently to show varying depths of field.
rabbit sign 04
Add a touch of blue and gray to the white to coat his body below his chin. I need to trick you into thinking he is a real live rabbit standing in front of you. Next?

rabbit sign 05
As our rabbit’s other features are painted you may notice a slight yellow tint in the whites on the ears, cheeks, and eye area. For those surfaces to appear closer, they need to be warmer. I move his right hand away from the most severely damaged area. This gives them a new target for the kids to aim for.

A coat of white and light pink is applied to the toes, ears, and nose. Thankfully, I can still see where the eyes and teeth are underneath, so I put a watered-down coat of purple-brown on the ax handle so I can see where to paint paw hands.

Values

Darkening the chin under the rabbit teeth, nose, and between the eyes makes his features begin to pop. Darken the chest and belly and you start to see in 3D. The uneven values and layers are beginning to hide the majority of the damages that were so evident in the beginning.

It takes more than one coat of white to really cover.

rabbit sign 06
You can see my fancy artist palette upfront on the table. I use a paint can lid turned over with drizzled spots of the paints that I anticipate mixing. It drives my husband crazy when he sees me dip my brush into paint cans without washing it first. He used to work in a hardware store mixing paint for people.

I hardly ever use clean colors while painting murals or signs. The only place I feel it is necessary to keep paint clean and pure is when I have to match paint on the walls of a room or house exterior.
rabbit sign 07
A closer shot shows the blue-grays working to distance his chest and make his teeth show upfront. His hands are placed on the ax handle and more gray areas are put on his ears and cheeks.

Darkening the lower belly and lightening the legs starts to show the separation between the knees and hand paws upfront. Highlights are added to his toes with a touch of light on his shoulders to keep the body connected to his face and neck. His rabbit character is coming to life.

rabbit sign 08

Finishing

Notice details around his eyes, ears, nose, and whiskers. His teeth are casting a shadow and his arms holding the ax are outlined to separate along with his kneecap and ear intersection.
Our fluffy snowshoe rabbit dries on the dining table ready to go back on the hill to greet the kids at 49 Degrees North .

Animal Character Signs

Mystery & Adventure

animal sign repairs — Peter repairing animal character signs.

The animal character signs tucked in and around the trees are one of my favorite things at 49 Degrees North Ski Resort (Chewelah WA). We are lucky to have really talented people in the ski school (Rick) and childcare center (Allison). Great things happen when experts teach our youth to love a sport because they think of these kinds of tools in their program, a mystery scavenger hunt through the trees.

Eric’s sister (sorry I don’t know her name) started it all. She is an artist who designed some great cartoon animal characters in a miner’s theme. She painted them on the walls in the kids club area and on plywood signs, starting this whole thing way back when.

These animal signs are strategically placed in the trees on the bunny hill trails for the kids to find. Most of the time, the kids touch or poke the animal as they ski past. Everyone tries to be the first to find all of them, as a result, learning to ski is a lot more fun.

Maintenance

Years ago (2008) I painted the children’s nursery. I repaired and painted some of the old ones and made some new animal signs as well. These animal characters get a lot of traffic on the trails and they consequently, need some tender loving care. Pete and I repaired the damage this week getting them ready. There is a total of 12 animal figures that we loaded up and brought home. All in all, we were able to resuscitate 10 of them so far.

Before

Bear on Ski's Sign Bear on Skis

Blue Bird With Shovel Sign Blue Bird with Shovel

Fox Sign Fox

Frog Sign Frog

Moose A Sign Moose A

Moose B Sign Moose B

Rabbit Sign Rabbit
Raccoon Sign Racoon

Red Bird on Cart Sign Red Bird on Cart

Snake Sign Snake

Both Moose are still being painted but all the rest are done and we will show you progress pictures in the following posts. We are waiting to find out if the hill management wants the two other guys redone or used for firestarter. They got missing limbs.

Broken Miner Sign

Broken Bear Panning for Gold Sign

Come check out the slopes up at 49 Degrees North Ski Resort, maybe we will see you up there. Kids are happy up there, and so are the adults.