With fresh coats of white primer for a base, the mural is outlined in black with markers. Apart from the sketch this is the most important design step, as the whole artwork will be based on these few lines.

One of the more challenging surfaces I've worked on, this exterior wall required much attention before it could be home to an exterior mural.

With the main mural colours blocked in, a background of Edmoton's downtown skyline is painted with a river valley forest.

Fort Edmonton Park and a horizon extending into outer space to show the curvature of the earth are added to the mural. The sky was painted with a paint sprayer for a smooth gradient.

The original mural sketch is superimposed on to a photo of the mural wall donated by Westside Automotive. This earlier version had potentially harmful products to the river beside a culvert, which was not easily understood for conservation and was scrapped.

A close up of the beginning of a mural; a giant rough sketch, to scale, of Edmonton's river valley wildlife.

Details of the river front woods are added to the left while a variety of birds now fill the murals sky, trees, and water. The murky depths of the river are suggested with dark greens.