Behind the Scenes – City of Warrensburg Mural

Today I’m deviating from my usual book cover behind the scenes to go behind the scenes of a large mural project I finished last year, doing work for one of my professors from college.

This project lasted approximately 18 months (April 2013 through October 2014). Dr. Bonsall directed the project, and the majority of the photos are hers. Other contributing photographers include: Robert Breshears, Andrew Mather, Bryan Tebbenkamp, Lowell Toole and Tricia Mannering, and special thanks goes to: Denton Humphrey, Lisa Irle, Brett Penrose, Courtney Stephens, Lisa Schmidt, Paula Hertwig Hopkins, UCM Photographic Services and Johnson County Historical Society.  The canvas was printed by Jerry Schmidt, and I did the computer artistry of blending all the images together. The mural currently resides in the Warrensburg, MO city hall.

Dr. Bonsall was one of my professors from my Bachelor of Science photography degree, and during her class, I was starting to do a lot of work focusing on digital manipulation of photographs. While I was still in college, she had commissioned me to do a couple smaller works where I blended various images into a single poster for her, and then after I graduated, she got a hold of me again and asked if I might be interested in this job. My job consisted of taking the photographs she provided, along with the sketches, and placing the photographs in a pleasing combination, then seamlessly blending them together.

The mural consisted of eight panels in four sections, with two panels per section placed side by side on canvas. Each section detailed a different area of focus: Whiteman Airforce Base, the University of Central Missouri, the town of Warrensburg, and the Union Pacific and Amtrak train station. The goal was to have each panel flow into the next panel, even though the categories were different.

For an example of scale:

(Myself on the left, Dr. Bonsall on the right, in front of the completed mural).

These are each of the four main panels: