Fireflies in a Lantern

When Jill and I were Artists-in-Residence at the Children's Museum of Denver, we were involved in every aspect of creative planning and implementation. The projects were always diverse, and always loads of fun.

A Story Room was a natural fit for the Museum's mission but it was a plan that needed to be done in several phases, so as to raise money before proceeding to the next phase. The 'easiest' way to start would be to paint a mural on the long wall of the room. With only a verbal okay for a verbal idea pitch, we started in on this slightly fanciful nighttime scene of fireflies flitting to and fro and gathering in the lantern to shed some light on the kid's book.

This was one of those paintings that just flowed onto the wall, with no pencilling or guidelines of any kind. I don't remember where it began and where it ended, but it was alla prima and all at once all the way. It was started and completed in six hours or so, with lots of stepping back to view from the far wall to get a sense of scale. It was a satisfying day's work.

The next phase was to be a 3 dimensional fanciful tree that would reside in a far corner that kids could play in and around during scheduled birthday parties, and other times have a storyteller sit at the base of the tree and have some puppet work back her up. For this phase we did some careful designing, creating a number of studies and a finished elevation painting for committee approval.

Eh, the next phase funding never came through. One more project plan to file in the archives.