Art brightens walls...			...in Burns Lake
			by Diana Roberts

As part of their ongoing project of beautifying Burns Lake, the Village has contracted artists to paint murals on the walls of blank, unsightly buildings. Many proposals were received for the three sites selected and two of the murals are complete. The third mural is delayed til next spring due to the weather. Paint for the project was donated by Burns Lake Building Supplies, with each artist choosing the paint they wanted to work with.

Alan Waddle's eagle

Alan Waddle is the artist who painted the mural on the side of Alberto's building. When asked for a design, he was able to come up with this one very quickly. The idea came from the mountains near Banff, with Francois Lake being the water inspiration. To enable the viewer to get a birds-eye view of the scenery, Alan painted the landscape as if you were seeing it from the back of an eagle. To paint this mural, he used an air brush which works like a fancy spray can and which makes the paint go a long way. Alan used an exterior acrylic latex paint, mixing his own colours from red, yellow and blue. It took a gallon of white for the base, then a total of one gallon of coloured paint.

Bonnie Remple's mural

The surface of the building is small rock chips which limited how much detail he could put on the wall. Alan felt it went really quite well, though he would like to have put in more detail. "Most artists tend to overwork things if you don't stop yourself. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out."