LIFE UPDATE | MURAL | MURAL PAINTING | STREET ART

Painting Where the Buffalo Roam

Our latest completed mural — July 19, 2023.

Summer seems to be flying by here in Canada and we have been busy. We finished one large mural at the tail end of June and have now finished our second summer project. This one is much smaller but it is already making an impact.

We were approached while we were painting our last project at the Canmore Legion. The lady told us that she had been wanting a mural for some time but wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted. Then when she saw our poppies, they made her think that she wanted some wild roses in her mural.

We met with her a day later and got a greater sense of her space and what she was looking for, then we came up with a basic concept design.

We painted at the Where the Buffalo Roam Saloon which is located on Main Street in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. Canmore is a very trendy and busy tourist town that is located just down the road from Banff and Banff National Park.

To say that this town has changed a lot here since I was a kid (I grew up in Canmore) is a massive understatement. It’s impossible to even try to describe how polar opposite it is now, in comparison to those dusty and dirty post-coal mine days that the town was built on.

These days Canmore shimmers and shines and has upscale food and beverage plus world-class experiences.

Getting to add our art to the vibe of the town was truly a privilege.

The wall is about 2 meters wide and is located in a covered area at the end of the restaurant's outside patio. It is immediately adjacent to the sidewalk of the main street in town, so it promised to make a great pop of color on the popular strip.

When we initially met with the owner, she told us that she wanted the design to incorporate 4 things:

• Buffalo
• Sagebrush
• Wild Roses
• A tribute to the Treaty 7 land that the restaurant resides on.

From that information, we created the following image and sent it off to her.

Our drawings are always quite simple and we let our customers know that there will be more details on the final product.

This is simply a concept.

She requested that we change the white around the feather to the dark green that is featured on some of the trim but was happy with the rest.

This time around, it was easy to photograph the whole project as it evolved, so I have decided to write this article in a step-by-step process so you can understand how this design was built.

Preparing the surface

We first cleaned the wall with TSP which helps to really make sure that there is no grease or mildew/mold on the wall. After letting it dry for two full days, we primed it with a basic exterior primer and made sure to do 2 coats on the areas where the cinderblock was showing through the paint.

Day One

On day one we successfully got a base color on all the areas that we had outlined in the drawing that we provided. Already, the owner was so excited and could see the difference that this was going to make to the restaurant.

Day Two

On day two I first drew in the feather with chalk so I could be sure that the overall design looked okay before I filled it in with the pink color. This color was chosen to match the trim that already exists around the windows.

All colors we use are hand mixed and created from scratch using basic primary colors red, blue, and yellow. Plus we always have white and black and sometimes a basic green.

On this day I also created shading on the sagebrush a bit and Chris painted the buffalos in and got the base color of the roses on the wall. We also added some dots of color in the fields to represent fields of wildflowers.

Day three

On day three we seemed to make some pretty great progress. I again worked on the sagebrush and added a light green color to it to start highlighting it a bit more. I also worked on the trees and waterfall and started bringing some texture and color into the mountains.

Chris brought some foliage into the flowers in the fields and started to shade the roses a bit.

Day four

On day four I painted in a sort of periwinkle blue into the feathers and added a cream-colored outline that also matches the building color. This really made the feather pop. In the second photo, you can see that I mirrored the feather with some simple triangles on the tiny end wall, as a way to also pay tribute to the indigenous population and the recognition that we are on treaty seven territory.

I again did more shading on the sage, really trying to define it and make it pop, while Chris added more shades to the roses and then added the yellow centers. A bit more work was done on the mountains to make them more textured and a bit more real looking.

Many people have asked us which mountains these are, and I can truly say that they are magical and mythical mountains that come from our imaginations.

Day five

On day five I added some light green highlight layers to the trees on the mountains to give them more life and Chris added details to the buffalo to make them look real.

I also added a yellow-green sage-type color to the sagebrush, to really make it pop more. Plus I painted ‘treaty seven territory’ on the feather and added the green leaves to the wild roses.

Day six

Finally, on day six we put in a long day to get this project wrapped up. Chris painted the drop shadow on our text and finished the details on the center of the roses. I painted our signature information and highlighted the leaves of the roses. I also added some shading and grass to the hillsides that the buffalo are standing on to make it look a bit more authentic and not so flat.

As part of this project was an exchange for food and drinks, we were happy to sit and enjoy a couple of beverages while we looked upon our completed project.

We also returned the following day to paint two coats of a protective clear coat that will both save the project from sun damage, plus creates a barrier over it so that if it gets sprayed with graffiti, it will be easy to clean off.

It was an honor to work on this project

We were thrilled to be asked to do this project and were even more thrilled with the subject matter. Of course, Where the Buffalo Roam is the restaurant's name, so it made sense to have an image like this. We both love buffalo and Chris has a special spiritual connection with them. But I was mostly impressed by the owner wanting to acknowledge the treaty seven territories in the mural.

It is initiatives like this that are starting to heal the wrongs of the colonists when they came to the Americas and segregated the indigenous in the ways that they did.

We have a long way to go, but actions like this are a start.

Future projects

We have a couple of irons in the fire for future projects around Canmore, so we will see what transpires. For now, we are happy to take a bit of a break and will enjoy a visit from Chris' Mom and Sister (plus their other halves) this weekend.

Thanks for following us on our painting journey. As always, we are traveling artists and are happy to travel anywhere in the world to paint a mural. If you know of anyone who needs a project done, please let us know!

Thanks so much for reading about our latest mural project! If you would like to learn more about our murals, please visit our website at www.artisticvoyages.com/murals. Most of our past projects are on there and the latest one will be getting added soon:)

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