Mural Design Part III : Parting Postcards

This will be my last story about Old Navy but it will be a non-fictional story. I say that because it will only be my version of what happened from April to May of 2014. During the beginning part of April my dad was released from the hospital but had to get chemo treatment and dialysis 3xs a week for 6 weeks . I was less than 2 months out from moving to Texas and attempting to get things prepped for that. I had an interview in Dallas that didn't go well and i was told there wasn't an operations manager position there for. Work had become extremely difficult to manage and function. I felt attacked from all angles at week. At one point in time i simply wanted to leave this unfinished and quit both the mural and work. However after talking to my girlfriend and my mom i made the decision to finish my obligations. After 12 years of service with Old Navy I'm not as bitter now as i was original. Everything that happened showed me this wasn't the place for me. 

The last huge pic of my very simple sketches as well as to prove that this all was done with a cheap Wal-mart brought paints and 2 paint brushes. I'm not a great man but hopefully i do great deeds. 

Mural Design Part II

This story that i tell you is an untold story that i haven't publicly told in full until now. My co-workers and not even my manager knew the truth of it all. From the end of Feb through the entire month of March my father was in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital. At first it was a simple minor infection from a surgery that landed him in the ICU.  At the time i juggled working full-time, went to see my dad after work on my days off, and  worked on the mural all at the same time. For 2 week the doctors didn't know what was going wrong with my dad minus the simple fact that whatever disease he had was attacking his major organs. There were times that i wanted to break down and give up but i didn't. I ultimately escaped in my artwork. I'm extremely thankful for is that i had an outlet that allowed me to lose myself. I believe it helped the piece because i didn't focus on the store being down 2 key  managers, customers, co-workers, and my dad was having medical concerns.

mural design part I

This mural started off oddly enough as one small one up on a new Old Navy location that was close to our building. The company decided to build another store less than 5 miles away from our store. The two stores would be closest locations with the same design within the entire Virginia Beach market (which isn't common in smaller market). Some of our associates and leaders went over to help open up that store and which was similar to our own with one exception. The exception being the break room for the associates. Every associate that came back to our location bragged about how nicer their break room was compared to ours especially because their store had a mural. Our leadership team  took offense to hearing that over and over again. Until ultimately my store manager suggested we make our own mural.
The original planning started off in late Spring and the associated had between 2 themes to chose from "superheroes" or "beach theme." Ultimately the beach theme won out after multiple attempts to get a complete consensus. I wanted to do a collaborations of sorts with another few photographer in our store but that fell through. One September morning i went to the ocean front and took some reference photos. During the fall and winter the natural needs of the business left little time for me to start of this construction. Shortly during the turn of quarter 1 of the year, i wanted this to be my last parting gift to the store. Almost a year out i had decided that i would be moving to Texas. On the tail end of one of my lunch shifts i pulled about a piece of chalk and began sketching out what would be a mural design.