We’ve talked a lot about ideas, teaching, and even planning. But how do you actually make a mural?
I’ll start with the nitty gritty details and numbers. Photos are at the end of the post.
Return to the previous post to review our design process.
Our Supplies List
For anyone who’s curious, here’s what we went through.
| Item | Source | Price | Quantity | Total Cost |
| Markers and crayons (for workshop activities) | Target | $9.57 | 1.00 | $9.57 |
| Sharpies, pencils, and graph paper (for workshop activities) | Target | $18.38 | 1.00 | $18.38 |
| Hardiebacker Cement Boards | Home Depot | $10.97 | 27.00 | $296.19 |
| Tarps | Home Depot | $4.48 | 2.00 | $8.96 |
| Glidden Premium Paint – gallon buckets | Home Depot | $23.48 | 3.00 | $70.44 |
| Behr Pro Exterior Paint – gallon buckets | Home Depot | $24.98 | 10.00 | $249.80 |
| Paint rollers | Home Depot | $6.28 | 3.00 | $18.84 |
| 6 pack extra rollers | Home Depot | $10.97 | 1.00 | $10.97 |
| 15 piece brush set | Home Depot | $9.67 | 1.00 | $9.67 |
| 4 inch flat brush | Home Depot | $3.85 | 3.00 | $11.55 |
| 1 inch flat brush | Home Depot | $0.94 | 4.00 | $3.76 |
| foam brushes | Home Depot | $0.64 | 9.00 | $5.76 |
| Pour Spouts for paint cans | Home Depot | $0.98 | 5.00 | $4.90 |
| Scotch Blue Painters Tape | Home Depot | $6.25 | 1.00 | $6.25 |
| 9″ paint roller | Community Warehouse | $5.28 | 1.00 | $5.28 |
| Paint Rags 10 pack | Home Depot | $3.97 | 1.00 | $3.97 |
| Glidden Exterior Paint – 1 quart | Home Depot | $11.28 | 1.00 | $11.28 |
| VandlSystem 1-gal. Anti-Graffiti Coating | Home Depot | $50.24 | 1.00 | $50.24 |
| $795.81 |
Additional Tools & Costs
- One ViewSonic projector, provided by the school; artists provided laptop to hook up to the project
- Both artists own the Adobe CS Suite to compile the final mural design and the files to project each panel
- A very creaky, old CRV (his name is Bowser, that trooper), after we foolishly and ambitiously loaded all of the extremely heavy cement board panels into the car
- 2 broken cement board panels 🙁 (Thank goodness we were able to get extra)
- Donuts and churros for our students who got up early to help us paint
See the post on Painting Days to review our process, from setup to workflow.
Additional Information about Our Materials
Cement Board: Pros and Cons
- Pros: They are extremely weather durable, and their advantage over a material like plywood is that they won’t bow or warp with the humidity and climate conditions. Cement board is usually used in shower and bathroom installations, so it’s made to take a lot of exposure to different conditions.
- Cons: They are brittle. We had to be very careful in their transportation. While they are sturdy and long-lasting, we did drop and break two panels in half.
Why didn’t we choose to paint directly on the brick wall? In the case of our building, it’s made with cream city brick, and the aged brick is crumbling and peeling. The surface takes paint poorly and the paint would easily come off the portions of the building that are built with the cream city brick. Additionally, since this is a collaborative piece with the students and neighbors, it was easier to set our project up outside and in the school’s garage. This allowed us to do a lot of upfront planning, to project sections of the mural on each panel, and not have to worry about having any students on a lift to reach high points on the building.
Time and Labor
Artists: There were two of us professional artists on hired for this project, Jenie Gao and Gabriela Riveros. In addition to 8 workshop sessions (2-3 hours each, for a total of 20 workshop hours), we spent 10+ hours outside of classroom time:
- lesson planning
- collaging and curating the student images to create the final design and creating the plan for executing the mural
- planning, purchasing, and transporting the materials
And 34+ hours of actual painting time (we typically had 7-10 helpers at a time, varying based on the students’ class schedules and community members’ participation):
- Monday, 6/20 from 8 am to 3:30 pm
- Tuesday, 6/21 from 8 am to 3:30 pm
- Monday, 6/27 from 8 am to 3:30 pm
- Tuesday, 6/28 from 8 am to 7:30 pm (Community Painting Day, where anyone from the neighborhood and city was invited to join us)
Contractor: We hired a contractor to install the panels on the wall. Our contractor worked to install the lumber support beams and hang the panels between 8/2 and 8/4. We had three student volunteers help him transport the panels to the building, where they also got to learn about installation.
Total, we (the artists) had 50+ hours of contact time with the students for this project, 34 of which we spent painting the mural.
Day 1 was dedicated to priming the boards. Everyone earned their ice, cold beverages that day.
Final Notes
We bought most of our supplies at Home Depot. The benefit of this is that Home Depot had everything we needed and multiple options. It was also convenient. But there are community resources for more affordable paint (though you’re limited in your options for colors). Community Warehouse in Milwaukee is a great resource for affordable supplies like brushes, paint rollers, and other staples, and it’s always worth looking for bulk/resale type shops like this place in any city you might be working in.
Glidden and Behr both had affordable options for exterior paint, semi-gloss. We went for semi-gloss because it’d be easier to wipe down if needed, without being maddeningly reflective in the sun like glossy paint would have been. It’s important to tell your paint mixer which colors you’ll be using as your primer or on top of other coats, as some colors are more opaque while others need to be mixed with a primer to be used on top of other paints.
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