Victory on Winthrop Road!
The bottom of Winthrop Road, where it meets Beacon Street on the corner where Emack and Bolio’s is, has always troubled me. Right near the corner is a large visible mural, and up the block 20 feet is a much smaller Nugs tag, and around the corner of that wall is a Nugs rabbit. Here is what they looked like:
The mural on the left was six feet high and eight feet long! It was probably the largest visible tag in all of Brookline (i.e. not along a train track or in an alley somewhere). I have wanted to get rid of it for a while, but did not have the supplies or skills to do it.
The second one was about a foot high and 18 inches long. The rabbit was about two feet high and three feet wide - and wasn’t visible unless you were walking down Winthrop toward Beacon.
For the rabbit on the right, I decided to use the Rustoleum Rustic Umber paint, as the bricks were that color. The other two were on the main part of the brick wall, and those bricks were much redder - and matched my Metal Primer (rust color) perfectly. I used a sandstone to repaint the mortar in the Nug tag.
It worked very well. I came up with a new technique, using a spray can and a brush at the same time. My left hand held the spray can and the right held a small brush. I sprayed along the brick, and then quickly spread it around with the brush. It allowed me to repaint a brick in about 3-5 seconds. This was much faster than either painting with just a brush or spraying using a screen, which ends up not distributing the paint evenly.
Here is the mural part of the wall after I was done:
If you walked right up to it and knew what you were looking for, you can see the shadow of it. (Yes, I could do a second coat, but didn’t see it as worth it.)
I was very pleased with how it came out, and I am no longer intimidated by graffiti on bricks.
The long view, from up Winthrop, shows the rabbit covered by Rustic Umber, which looks very different in different kinds of light.
