View from Red Route One is a painting installation in San Francisco, CA.
Put it together at my cousin’s house in San Francisco back in 2011. The title refers to a secret doorway in a fictional junkyard featured in the “Three Investigators” series of children’s books. Kinda like “Encyclopedia Brown”, except three of them. And set in/near San Francisco. It consists of nine (9) panels, total size: 68″x92″.
!["the View from Red Route One"](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC032111.jpg)
This is what it looks like finished and hung. You can’t see the 12-foot drop below the work– but it made for some nerve-wracking install.
![sf_1906_quake_city_on_fire_sm](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/sf_1906_quake_city_on_fire_sm.jpg)
I used a photograph of the great San Francisco fire of 1906, boosted the contrast, and used a video projector to trace it onto some wood paneling.
![mural_layout_all_sm](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mural_layout_all_sm1.jpg)
The red shapes indicate where I boosted the contrast of the shadows, then merged/smoothed the shapes.
![DSC03110](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC031101.jpg)
![DSC03113](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC031131.jpg)
![DSC03116](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC031161.jpg)
![DSC03118](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC031181.jpg)
![DSC03124](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC031241.jpg)
After that I cut out the shapes with a jigsaw.
![DSC03194](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC03194.jpg)
Then I painted/sanded/stained/varnished the panels.
![DSC03195](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC03195.jpg)
Once I was done with that, I mounted them back onto heavy-grade watercolor paper onto which I had transferred the original photograph using really toxic blending markers. You can see the hand drawn lines from the “rubbing”– it has a weird, hand-drawn-except-really-a-photo look to it.
![DSC03212](https://ericmedine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC03212.jpg)
I used extruded aluminum cleats to mount the panels to a frame– this has to be earthquake-resistant, after all. The frame was mounted to the wall using 8-inch lag screws. That summbitch is not coming off.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.
Wow. Can we afford you?