The outline for the interior of the piano box mural has started, with a humpback whale, orcas and a harbour seal drawn in black marker. A mural outline is perhaps the most important step, and I rarely draw one without “erasing” a subject and moving it, sometimes only inches.

Time lapse videos caught me painting the sky for the Pacific underwater section of this Piano Box mural. As a BC mural artist I've had several studios, and this one was in Duncan, on Vancouver Island.

As a child, whales were one of the first things I ever drew. As a Victoria, BC mural artist who is always looking for spouts in the sea , it is very rewarding to paint whales, like this humpback.

The progression of painting bull kelp in this mural shows how different underwater seascapes can be; without a ground, it can be like floating in space. Eelgrass, seen on the bottom right, is essential at some phase for an estimated 80% of commercial fish and shellfish in BC's Salish Sea.

The inside mural of the piano box nears completion with the killer whales and humpback whale, kelp and seal being painted. The white curved lines are actually chalk and show where the sine waves of the whale songs will go.

This Chemainus underwater ocean mural incorporates real sine waves of sounds from a humpback whale and killer whales! Finding the visual representation of whale languages required research, and it was very satisfying to know what I painted were the sounds of real whales.

Painting a 1905 Bell upright grand piano was a unique experience as a Victoria, BC mural artist! The piano was donated to the Chemainus Festival of Murals Society for this mural project and I treated it as part of the artwork.

A progress photo of me painting killler whale artwork, or orca artwork, into the Chemainus Festival of Murals Society. Painting with acrylic in my Duncan BC studio at the time, it felt great to have sun beams shining on the mural.

The outside of the piano in a box has been started, with a blue sky painted in the background and the outline of the mural being drawn with paint markers, including a raccoon. It was a unique experience as a mural artist to paint two murals of Chemainus in one project!

These photos show the progression of this Chemainus mural forest scene, starting with a light green as a base colour. I wanted this forest to have a bright sunny day, with sunlight shining through the cedar trees.

These four photos show how the coastal BC rain forest section of this Chemainus mural progressed to include large cedar trees painted in red sienna and a raccoon in the lower foreground. I like painting scenes like this in acrylic paint from the background to foreground, shown here from the cedar trees to the green ferns.