Artist Robert Hudson, of Mentone, said there will be trees, flowers around the Gardens and balloons in the sky that spell out “Warsaw.” Strings from the balloons will be painted so people can photograph themselves as if holding the balloons.
City of Warsaw Senior Planner Justin Taylor said the project came about from the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council. Members of MYAC have been working since September 2018 to come up with ideas it could do for the city and came up with the mural. The Council applied for a $5,000 grant from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, which it was awarded in April for the implementation of the 2019 My Community My Vision project.
Katie Swain, a Warsaw Community High School senior who has been a part of MYAC since her sophomore year, said they decided on a mural after a few months of coming up with many ideas for city beautification projects. “I think we decided a mural was the most realistic and would benefit the downtown area for many years to come,” she said via email.
Tentatively, Taylor said, the finished mural will be revealed at the First Friday in October on Oct. 4, which has a theme of “Art-tober.”
Hudson said he potentially will finish the mural in about two weeks, weather permitting.
The concept for it started from a simpler sketch Hudson had, but the MYAC had additional ideas for it and the mural grew from there. Once finished, the top of the mural will be 14 feet high, though the mural itself is 12 feet high by 24 to 26 feet long.
Swain said, “As for the design of the mural, once we decided on the artist he brought us a few sketches. We discussed them in a meeting and picked our favorite one.”
Including driving time, Hudson estimated the mural will take about 100 hours to complete.
As of Wednesday, he said the courthouse turned out pretty good for being on corrugated metal and was happy with how the clouds looked. The base paint is acrylic, but he’s using more expensive oil paint to finish it to give it a “better luster and warmth than house paint,” he said. He’ll put a clear acrylic wet look sealer on it this winter and spring to give it a longer-lasting fresh look.
This isn’t the first mural Hudson has painted. He said the downtown Warsaw one is either his 29th or 30th, having done others in Ligonier, Mentone, Tippecanoe and elsewhere. The longest one he’s completed was over 100 feet and 15 feet tall.
“I think there will be more interest in murals in Warsaw. Maybe not by me, but murals are fun and people like to look at them,” he said.
Swain said MYAC members are “all super excited this project is finally a reality and nearing completion after working on it for nearly a year! Once we begin meeting during this school year, we will start discussing what a new project may be if we pursue another one.”
