A Mighty Mural, by Hannah Bailey

Hannah Bailey was commissioned to illustrate some gigantic murals by the Star of the Republic Museum, Texas. Read on to find out how she approached this mammoth task, complete with life sized chickens!

I was absolutely delighted to be asked to illustrate a set of murals for the Star of the Republic Museum, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas – a big moment in my career in more ways than one! This was my first mural and a whopper, my illustrations covering the length of 2 x 14m long walls inside the family gallery.

It was a huge challenge to scale up my work, calling for my rusty maths skills, a big scanner, huge brushes and some giant tracing paper. I loved the chance to create big textures and splash the ink around. To give an idea of the proportions – the chickens in the mural are lifesize!

To make sense of the huge space, I broke it down into lots of scenes, and joined them all up. From one end to the other, the mural shows a 19th century Texas landscape, moving from farmers cottages and livestock to a market town with stores, carts and stalls, and an old well. I wanted to capture the essence of the townspeople through their bits and bobs – as if they had put down their things and gone inside for lunch.

Thank you to the Star of the Republic Museum and Gallagher Design for inviting me to be a part of this project, to the Artworks and Tom at Mendola for all your hard work.