Swordwhale Walking: illustration, webcomic, stories, photojourneys, videos
  • launch here
    • what I do and how much I charge
    • tales of the Earth Life Foundation
    • American lotus
  • art & stories
    • black horses
    • Sea Ponies of Chincoteague
    • Just Animals
    • playing with water
    • Tradigital illustration
    • environmental education >
      • Christmas Magic Mural 2020
      • animal alphabet and counting murals
      • Assateague ponies
      • the salamander room
      • more touch room ocean
      • more: touch room forest
      • wetland
      • wetland art
      • greenleaf
      • reptile week murals: Nixon Park
    • just animals: photography
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        • Merrows Cap credits
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          • but wait, there's Moore, and Silverheels
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      • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass: credits
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      • Misty Stormy credits
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      • hot hot hot credits
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    • Fall Roundup Oct 2019
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    • the 3rd Sea Voyage of Makenuk's Fin
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    • wild ponies in camp
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    • Christmas by the Sea
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  • crafty stuff
    • customizing riders and other characters
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    • photo your toys >
      • how to photograph Breyers in the wild
      • welcome to Hawk Circle: telling stories with model horse photography >
        • more Hawk Circle
        • take your models to the beach
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      • Sam and Bucky's Excellent Adventure
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      • paint and wet snow pants
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      • derps (or how not to photograph Breyers and others)
      • wild Breyers >
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      • educational display
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      • how to photograph your dragon
    • ModPodge rules
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      • more faerie gardens
      • faerie festival at Spoutwood Farm
    • sea this tutu (and make)
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    • sea treasures
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    • rehabbing horse epic fail >
      • do you wanna build a snow pony?
      • do you wanna build a sand pony?
      • Barbie horse gets a makeover
    • mermaid saddles
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      • a Brandywine Christmas
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      • Uncle Bob's Toys 2016
      • more: Uncle Bob's Crafts
      • the Adventures of Mortimer
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    • Go Play Outside
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        • Autumn Run on Wheels
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        • the Rock Garden >
          • return to the Rock Garden
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        • Sassafras river 2018
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        • where are the manatees?
        • ...and the dolphins???
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        • Watching Whales...again
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  • art class
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    • (drawing) horses 101 >
      • horse color 101
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      • Draw: a horse
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    • mural: how to >
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    • palettes
  • wait wait! let me get the camera!
  • who perpetrated all this???
    • swordbroad

Reptile Week Murals: Nixon Park

a messy education in paint slinging and sponge glopping

Once a year, Nixon Park's visitor's center is a zoo... really. Dozens of reptiles and amphibians fill aquariums and cages, ready to educate the public on these slimy and scaly wonders. To create backdrops for several of the animals, we created murals in a class designed to teach anyone, with any skill level, some fun techniques. 

We started with cotton sheets, in some cases, fabric glued together for larger sizes. You might tape these to a wall (with plastic dropcloths behind) which is how I drew the sketches. for painting, we laid the sheets over tables with dropcloths all around. Tables create issues with cracks, bumps and wrinkles. You have to remember to remove the tape holding edges to paint that part. You can also hold a part of the fabric as you do a brushstroke so it doesn't move or wrinkle. Sheets on tables allow everyone to get all the way around the pieces. You will have to paint upside down on some parts, just put your reference upside down.


Start with basic shapes/colors. Try not to be too gloppy. You can do dry brush techniques, putting a minimum of paint on the sheet and letting the white show through, as in a watercolor painting. You can do acrylic techniques, covering all the white with the opaque paint, painting light colors over dark, or dark colors over light. Use sponges, rollers, sponge brushes clipped into shapes that create textures, big bristly house painting brushes.

Add detail/texture. Sponges are great for texture. Different sponges create different kinds of texture. You can stomp/pound a big bushy house painting brush for textures, drybrush a bristly brush for grass or tree bark. 

Finish the little details. Get out your little nylon pointy brushes and finish stuff. You don't want limp natural hair brushes here, you want nice pointy springy brushes that will apply paint to a wiggly sheet.

Don't even try to use artists' paints unless you're very rich. Artists' acrylics are translucent, and designed to mix beautifully and create luminous, glowing paintings. House paint and craft paint are opaque and designed to cover objects. They do not mix as well. You can use them, but be careful how you mix colors. Experiment on scrap paper.

Try out brushstrokes and colors on scrap paper.

It's opaque paint, you can paint over mistakes.

Foliage with lots of dark shadows works best if you start by painting the darks, the shadows, then begin painting the green foliage over that. Go from back to front, from dark to light.

For the rest of your landscape, work from back to front, do the sky and put the trees in front of it. Do your big shapes then your details.

Use fans to speed drying, and keep yourself from choking, even though it's only latex and acrylics. A hairdryer on nuclear blast setting will also help.

If you're the teacher, demonstrate actual brushstrokes and techniques. Tell everyone to ask questions as soon as they think of them or don't know what to do next. Ask them if they've got questions when they don't ask questions.

Black is dead: with art paint, in watercolor or acrylic you avoid using black to darken colors, it's made of dead stuff. More live blacks and greys come from mixing burnt umber and ultramarine blue and other opposites. For mural paint, go ahead, use the black, it actually works pretty well. None of this paint is translucent glowie stuff like you'll see in watercolor or a good acrylic painting. It's a different effect. White and yellow lighten and brighten nicely. Have a few different versions/shades of the colors you need. Mixing them yourself gives limited results.

Wrinkling the sheets and using a small roller over it with lighter colors creates nice rock textures. Paint the basic rock dark, sponge medium tones over it, wrinkle and use roller with light color over that.
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