This summer I'm painting a mural in our town (Lebanon Missouri - about an hour north of Springfield) that's going to be a scenescape of The Martian Chronicles. It's basically going by the book's descriptions, except I'm painting a lake instead of the typical channels (easier to make reflections of the sky in a large water area). Any suggestions? I won't start blocking in shapes until Tuesday, so if you have an idea, please let me know.

(Hi, I'm Tina Casagrand...I just signed up here...obviously. Bradbury is my favorite author. I first read Something Wicked in 7th grade and have been hooked since then. This looks like a great board, glad to be here.)

Use various tones of reds, and be sure to include some cityscapes in the distance, with some rockets scattered along the open areas. An interesting artistic question on the rockets would be their style. In the earlier years of science fiction, rockets were drawn as being kind of rounded and almost bulbous in shape. When you look at how they've ended up, they are pretty sleek and straight.

The mural sounds like a great idea. I hope you're able to do it in a way that you're happy with the results. Maybe you can have a picture taken and post it here when you're done, so we can all see it?

Oh, I definetly plan on doing the cityscapes. My boyfriend (who's working with me) and I are trying to decide if we should put some towers in the foreground at the bottom left corner. As far as color goes...

sky - dark purple/lighter red-violet near the horizon (early morningish)
terrain - deep red, w/ some red-orange
buildings - white, of course

I'm not sure we're going to do any rockets. Right now I think we have an untouched Mars in mind. I'd make them more sleek though.

We may even make up some extraterrestrial creatures, if the painting starts lacking something. I'll definetly post pictures once it's done.

An image of Ray in a wispy cloud somewhere might be nice. . .

"It all pretty much says Mars was a place, particularly early in time, where liquid water was abundant at or close to the surface," Arvidson said.

Scientists are particularly interested in an inner basin to the south of the summit that contains an outcrop named "home plate" because it looks like a baseball diamond from orbit. Scientists hope to drive the rover down to explore the basin after it finishes its job at the summit."

SEE:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/02/mars.rovers.ap/index.html

Hmm. This makes one wonder if a "hot dog stand" might have been not far from the location being considered!

IMA Robot,
please look up Chelsey Bonestell, he was a great artist in the 1950's I believe. He is well known for his space artwork, you might pick up some ideas.

How about one of those sky chariots with the flaming electric birds?