Cloud Forest

"Cloud Forest" by Nancy Avalon, date unknown. Painted mural located inside the Children's Room of Bemis Public Library on the ceiling above the desk and around the walls inside the story room. Painted by local artist Nancy Avalon; she spent many hours on this project. Children have been enjoying the cloud paintings for years.

From the artist:

"I was commissioned in 2000 to create cloud formation art in the new Children's Room at Bemis.
I proposed to Margery Smith (the Director at the time) to do depictions of Folk and Fairytales on the ceiling soffit and do animals on the walls in the Storyroom--all in cloud formations. She specified that she wanted the "Castle" theme to be continued into some aspect of the artwork, and only white paint used against the sky-blue background color.

Armed with sketches of my ideas, large house paint brushes, damp rags and gallons of white acrylic house paint, I climbed up into the 8' scaffold. I worked directly on the wall with my brush with no preliminary sketching, referring to my notes and small sketches. I started on the far left soffit wall above the librarian's desk (keep in mind there were no shelves of books or any furniture in the room yet) and worked my way slowly from one story illustration to the next. I believe it took me about 2 weeks to accomplish (5-7 hours per day) for the soffit, and another 5 days to do the Storyroom.

The techniques I used in the creation of the images were under and over painting, monochromatic reverse-wipeout technique (with an underpainting of blue, I rubbed out the overpainting of white to create the shadows, leaving the white as highlights) and "sfumato" technique.

The Folktales, Fairytales, and Legends depicted on the soffit are as follows:
Jack and the Beanstalk
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Cinderella
Merlin (King Arthur)
Rapunzel
The Reluctant Dragon (St. George and the Dragon)
Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Frog Prince
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Aladdin and His Magic Lamp (1001 Nights)

The storyroom has various animals (Elephant, Giraffe, Crocodile, etc. plus the Colorado State Fossil (Stegosaurus), Canadian Geese, Mountain Lion and Cubs plus many others, with teddy bears greeting you at the entrance and ants taking you on a march along all the walls.

I enjoyed painting this addition to the newly-renovated Children's Room at the Bemis Public Library. It was the "icing on the cake" to my many years there as a Children's Librarian and Storyteller.

--Nancy Avalon

For more artwork and biography of the artist, please visit:
NancyAvalon.com"

Owner: City of Littleton
Maintenance authority: City of Littleton - Bemis Public Library