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Wylie House Scenic Mural

We have for a number of years been talking about having a scenic mural painted in the entry hall of the museum. Rufus Porter http://www.rufuspotermuseum.org/index.html and other intinerant painters of the early 19th century painted murals in homes and inns and we thought the entry hall of Wylie House would be a great place to showcase such a technique. John Thom, who owns Florentine Finishes in Bloomington and who has already done so much work in the museum (stenciling, wood graining, faux marbling) has been commissioned to execute the mural for us. We've asked him to depict the early IU campus that was located just down the hill from Wylie House in what is now called Seminary Park on 2nd Street, the first Bloomington courthouse, the Wylie well and other outbuildings as they might have looked (based on historical documents in our archive). Work began on March 24, 2009 and was completed in early June. The images here illustrate the process. We and our visitors are very pleased with the end product!

Click on the thumbnails to get a larger view of each picture.

John and his assistant, Isiah Killion, begin to lay in the blue sky background. Clouds will be added later.

John, laying in the background color for the landscape.

John, mixing more paint for the background.

Looking down the entry hall from the north toward the front door, with the background finished.

Isiah wrapping the blue sky around the corner into the stairwell. This blue will fade into a much lighter blue as it goes up to the top of the stairwell and down the upper hall.

John adds shading to the background landscape.

Preliminary sketch guides placement of chalk details.

John begins to chalk in some details.

Isiah begins to add color to the chalked buildings.

John adds a 19th Century barn to the landscape.

More details are added to the early campus scene.

We decidede to include a depiction of Wylie House in the mural.

Isiah works on the cupola of the IU classroom buidling built in 1836.

John painting the first Monroe County Courthouse, as depicted in an early illustration.