The archways

Here are the individual painted archways from Garin Bakers mural. Images should click to a large view. The following text is Garin.


In brief, You got to know Newburgh. Once had a heyday during the fifties as "The All American City" as the old timers still call it, on the banks of the Hudson River 60 miles north of NYC.
Now it's the "tale of two cities". Along the waterfront, nice and all renovated for restaurants goers and night spots for the suburb clubbers.
The Railroad Trestle runs 300 ft along the shore line as an impenetrable barrier to an small inner city beyond and up the hill.
Choked by poverty, although a diamond in the "Rough". Literally the highest murder rate per-capita on the eastern seaboard.
All the wonderful sites depicted in the 5 Trestle Mural "Archways" , sit just beyond the wall a few block away, empty to a large degree for only fear won't allow many to explore and embrace them.
..............Garin

Archway #1, "Washington Headquarters" 16 ft high X 45 ft long,
(All figures in the foreground are life size.)


Archway #2, "Broadway Corridor" 16 ft high X 45 ft long,


Archway #3, "Downing Park" 16 ft high X 45 ft long,



Archway #4, "Dutch Reformed Church" 16 ft high X 45 ft long,


Archway #5, "The Crawford House" 16 ft high X 45 ft long,

Garin Baker talks about his methods

Garin Baker has provided photos and some explanation of the mural process. The following is in his words. This is part one in a two part series of photos and some commentary on the project

The original wall as we found it which was constructed to carry freight and passenger trains in the 1860's

The following are explanations of Mural procedure and some "how to" photos
Specifically, "Archways" the Trestle Mural Project, Newburgh, NY 22 ft high X 220 ft long.
Completed in 2007 by myself and a team of 7-10 artist in a 5-6 month time frame not including presentation approvals and fundraising which added another 3 years to the project
done by a Not for Profit organization named Trestle Inc.

Be that as it may I'm prefacing everything I'm about to reveal with the most important fact that every Exterior Mural project is unique.
Site conditions, Climate, Wall surface, building or retaining wall, stucco, concrete or brick, height from the ground, ability to use lift equipment or scaffolding. I could go on and on.
Lets use the Trestle Mural as an example. Which I consider a huge failure as a permanent exterior Mural which basically should have a life span of about 25- 30 years if all the prep work was done correctly which it was not on this project by a long shot.
A moisture ridden retaining wall which needed a thick parged coating of a moisture barrier material applied consistently and primed before we started painting the mural.
It was only after we started painting the mural did we realize the City of Newburgh hired a contractor who owed back taxes to do the job and as he worked from left to right he skimped and cheated all who loved the project and now see it presently, a beautiful work of art that should have lasted. I'm sorry to inform all who are interested that the Murals present condition is irreparable and large sections need to be removed.
Anyway here's how we did it.

The presentation of the design for approval and fundraising purposes.


The Fundraising: Corporate sponsorships, private donation for commemorative bricks laid on site and a NYS Coastal waters Grant, Oh yes, wall prep provided by the City Of Newburgh.

Mural Painting work begins on site, Scaffolding is erected, The art shed ( below) is strategically placed and all the artist working get paid and have health insurance. Yippee!


Our palettes are constructed on site using 4 x 8 sheet of plywood cut in half. Then cutting 12 holes around the top perimeter in order to allow for chinese soup take out dishes with lids to
be dropped into so that they don't fall through.
The paint I used on this project was a Benjamin Moore product called Impervo, Oil Based Alkyd Enamels , Very durable with light fast colors with a polyurethane binder, gloss finish. in a wide range of mixable colors.
This paint is used commonly by exterior sign painters also sometimes applied to US Navy ships and industrial machinery.
The colors I choose range from black to white and cools to warms similar to an impressionist plein air painters palette from light to dark and warm to cool.
Also I like using the primary colors or as close as I can get them since I can basically mix anything else freehand simulating the illusions of light with color
No pre mixed colors for me bro! Cheep Home depot Turpentine as thinner and big fat chip brushes. We go through allot of them.
Long flat Bristle brushes for the figures and some finish work but I stress to the apprentices and other artist working if I see you in any one spot noodling details too long your
climbing high up on the scaffolding to clean brushes one at a time. Fast and loose is how I paint catching the lights, shadows and right details with one stroke. Sargent and Sorolla baby!
I used to render when I was younger, Don't have the patience anymore. Too many walls and paintings I want to do.

Garin Baker murals

I want to return to Garin Baker again and show what he does for a living. Garin is the guy who painted the portrait of me at my easel, and I enjoyed meeting him at the Cranford "Paint the town" event last week. Garin paints giant murals,including one 200 feet long. I asked if he would send me some "process" photos and that is one above. This is a drawing for a mural about transportation for a building in Washington DC. If you click on it you should get a pretty good size image. These drawings are huge, never mind the murals and need to be seen as large as possible to appreciate the complexity and finish of the drawings.

Here is another drawing for the transportation project.

And below, the finished mural for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association in Washington, D.C , it is 15 feet high and 30 feet long.


Garin studied at Pratt and then at the Art Students League. He studied there with David Leffell and Ted Seth Jacobs. He began a career in illustration, but wanted to do his own art for a living as he was painting for himself when not doing his illustration work. In 1990 he moved out of the city to New Winsor, NY. Where he has restored an old post and beam home and turned the barn into a studio equipped for producing enormous mural canvases.

To get the work as a mural painter it is necessary to do a presentation drawing to show the potential client what your completed mural will look like. Here is another of those below for a public mural in Washington called "How We Live".

Here is the wall to be decorated with the scaffolding up and a scissors lift.

Below is Garin with a big brush on that lift.

And below, the finished mural 30 feet by 30 feet.

Here is a detail of the mural.

Below are two other mural designs, you will have to click on them to really see what they look like as these photos are small.

Finalist Proposal Rendering, Missouri Department of Transportation. This was done in black & white charcoal on Canson paper, it is 38 inches by 104 inches

The mural below is in Newburgh New York and depicts gang members idling on the left and those same gangbangers restoring a brownstone row house on the right.


Here is a link to a short movie about another of Garins projects called "The Archways".

Philip Koch

I am doing something a little different tonight. I have shown a lot of historic art and lots of my own art, but tonight I am showing the art of one of the readers of this blog,Philip Koch. I met Philip several years ago when we were both on a panel discussion at the Cape Cod Museum of art. I don't think we were on the same panel, there were several, however we all showed some paintings there, and I was impressed with his.

All of the art by the members of the panel was impressive, there were some well known painters there. Philips painting was different from the things to which I usually find myself drawn. I will take the risk of speaking about another painters art just a little. I seldom do that with a living artist, usually I am discussing the works of an artist long dead. It brings a whole different level of caution as the artist is out there to rebut what I say. I can tell you what I think looking at it, but only that.

Philip Koch is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He started out doing abstract painting but a love for the 19th century American painters, and Edward Hopper, led him into a contemporary style that is based on those historic influences.I think that's what I like about these, I have based what I do on these historic models and I see him doing the same thing. He has looked at the same art I have and sunk his roots deep into it. Although our paintings are quite different I think our aims are similar. I am reluctant to put a label on these paintings, are they semi-abstract or demi-expressionist, or new realist? I don't know and I guess labels don't really matter much.

Philip works outside in vine charcoal a lot. Here is a charcoal drawing below.

He is inventing his heightened color and doing a lot of arranging the landscape so it makes sense for him to do charcoals outside. This drawing was done near Edward Hoppers old studio on Cape Cod, where he has been invited to stay and work for twelve summers since 1983.

The painting above has a number of design ideas in it, including some that I have written about.
There are "stacked values" for instance, see how that foreground shore and tree is light against the dark or the island behind it? Many lesser painters would have marched everything across the painting like a frieze, with all the elements parallel to the picture plane. In this painting the lines of the foreground and the ripples in the water both recede obliquely into the picture taking the viewer into the middle ground. The whole arrangement is reminiscent of Hudson River school painting with its broad sky and still, crystalline feeling. He has studied that art , but he has brought to it a contemporary sensibility .

Philip Koch has had his work in 11 solo exhibitions in American art museums including the Butler Institute of American Art (OH), the Saginaw Art Museum (MI), and the Swope Art Museum (IN). In 2008 the University of Maryland University College published a 92 page scholarly catalogue on his work from the last decade that focuses on his art of the New England coast. The catalogue accompanies a national traveling exhibition running through 2011. Koch's paintings are in the Permanent Collections of twelve American art museums.

Philip has a blog that he has been writing and you can find it here. Instead of letting me tell you about HIS paintings, you can go to his blog and learn about them from the artist himself.

Here he is, with the mountains of Acadia National Park behind him. The recent entries in his blog have been about painting there and he shows some of the things he made . I am pleased to have artists like Philip reading MY blog, and I see that as an encouragement and a great compliment.