While working with Walmart and the LA-based public art agency NOW Art, I was given the incredible opportunity to create a second mural for the Walmart in my hometown of De Soto, MO during their remodel. The Walmart employees commissioning the mural through NOW Art requested I keep the three main elements of my original design: the historic Melba Theatre, the fountain outside of our City Hall, and representation of trains.
Like with my first design, I played with color and bathed the Melba Theatre in bright, exaggerrated tones, though I kept my palette much closer to reality this time. I made some changes to the composition and moved the train into the background with the expectation of it approaching, given the train tracks on the left side of the composition. I decided to give a look into the interior of the theater in order to better represent the school district mascot, the dragon, which is incredibly important to the surrounding community. The inclusion of the dragon and other elements on the screen also contributed to the whimsical tone of the piece, which was something I wanted to cultivate.
Like with my first design, I played with color and bathed the Melba Theatre in bright, exaggerrated tones, though I kept my palette much closer to reality this time. I made some changes to the composition and moved the train into the background with the expectation of it approaching, given the train tracks on the left side of the composition. I decided to give a look into the interior of the theater in order to better represent the school district mascot, the dragon, which is incredibly important to the surrounding community. The inclusion of the dragon and other elements on the screen also contributed to the whimsical tone of the piece, which was something I wanted to cultivate.
I made the decision to set the new mural design at night, titling it "A Night on the Town," to better contrast the warm colors of the theater with a cool, nighttime palette as well as highlight the emphasized elements of light, with the inclusion of the searchlights above the theater, the train's headlight, and the projector light as it reaches the screen. With both these various light elements and the water of the fountain, I was able to focus on and experiment with transparency in the peice, which I believe elevates the piece's visual intrigue and creates more depth.
In the second set of photos, the photo on the left depicts an earlier design concept for the piece. After reviewing some feedback, I made the decision to heighten the realism in regards to the illustration of the dragon and to make changes to the city and state labels to be more discreet and help mature the piece to suit a more general audience.
The third set of photos is a comparison between the original mural, "A Walk Down De Soto Main Street" (2019), and the current mural. The two pieces, installed on the same wall years apart, are different ratios, with the scale of the new mural being larger, but they do bear some similarities by request. I included several homages to the original mural in the design for the new version, including the red perched on the top o the fountain (now with two new friends) and the reference to the town's unofficial titles on the theater's marquee.
