Susan Togut
Children's Murals

Susan Togut's mural work with intergenerational groups is a natural development of her own work exploring transparency and layering, changing light and changing seasons. Susan has worked on volunteer and commissioned projects for schools, hospitals, and community groups. She resides in the Hudson Valley region of Now York State.

Susan Togut is a public artist who has become involved working on murals with children, the elderly, and those touched by serious illness. She has created mural projects involving large groups of people for schools, community sites, and hospitals. Susan faces special concerns about substrates and materials because of the types of groups she works with and the sensitive locations where her murals appear. Substrate choice is greatly influenced by the groups that Susan works with. When working on exterior or interior walls, Susan prefers to work on wooden panels rather than on the walls themselves. There are a couple of reasons that she gives for her selection. When working on an indoor mural in a school, for example, it is messy and difficult to have the children working on the walls directly. Many of them won't be able to reach the higher portions of the mural, and it is too dangerous to have them standing on ladders. Having a lot of children and materials in the narrow hallways at one time can interfere with school traffic.

Susan also prefers the wood panels because she finds that they can help control the chaos factor of working with large groups of people (she has had up to 500 people working on a single mural). By assigning smaller groups a specific theme and area, it helps them to focus their energies and fine tuning the work becomes a lot more manageable. For indoor murals, Susan has used fourteen 4' X 8' panels of MDO plywood, ½" thick. For exterior murals, she has used up to twenty-four 4' X 8' panels of ¾" MDO. Susan primes the panels with Sherwin Williams Heavy Duty latex paint. Indoor panels are primed with 2 coats on the front side. On outdoor panels, she primes both the front and the back with 2 coats, and uses additional coats on the edges where the panels are most vulnerable. She also says that building a frame around the edges can increase longevity.

Susan uses GOLDEN Heavy Body Acrylics on the wooden panels, and she draws from a wide gamut of colors including metallic, iridescent, and interference colors, For a protective finish on outdoor murals, Susan uses a two-step process prescribed by GOLDEN Artist Colors. She applies an isolation coat of GOLDEN Soft Gel Gloss, Then she puts on two coats of MSA Varnish, Gloss or Satin. Indoors she doesn't use any topcoat unless the mural is in an extremely high traffic area or directly exposed to natural light. Susan warns about one problem that can come up when working on wooden panels.

Scale is very important to the success of a mural, and when artists are not working right on the wall or working away from the site, creating an appropriate scale can be more of a challenge. Artists should consider issues related to scale carefully before they start working. Lexan, a polycarbonate with excellent impact strength, is another substrate that Susan enjoys working on outdoors. She creates simulated stained glass installations and environments using mural components such as her "Healing Arbor" in Kingston, NY. Susan says the transparency of the Lexan is very effective, and it can successfully resist most outdoor conditions.

No preparation is needed for the Lexan since transparency is key to achieving the proper effect. Susan mixes GOLDEN Fluid Acrylics with GAC 200 to make the paint adhere better to the plastic and GAC 500 to make the paint layer less tacky and more durable. For a topcoat she uses a minimum of 2 coats of MSA Varnish Gloss which increases the glass-like quality of the Lexan.

Susan experimented with a variety of products before deciding to use the Fluids to paint the Lexan. She didn't want to use toxic materials when working with children or cancer patients. This eliminated some products that produced excellent results but were so toxic she wouldn't even use them herself. She also worked with a dye paint that looked beautiful, but it was not pigment based, not good for outdoors, and faded quickly. GOLDEN Fluids, however, were safe, permanent, and were able to produce the effects that she wanted. Planning a mural project can take anywhere from one month to six months, says Susan, depending on the project and how many people are involved. When working with school or community groups she meets with everyone involved, and this can take a while. Each project usually has a unifying theme and she needs to consider how to engage diverse age groups (she works with 3 to 100 year olds). "It is always a challenge," says Susan, "figuring out how to engage everyone in the project without total chaos. Planning is in important part of that." Many of Susan's projects are site specific, especially the "stained glass'' installations which interact with the position of the sun and changes in seasons. She says that each time she has a new project she consults GOLDEN's Technical Support department for any specific advice related to the site. She feels this has greatly contributed to the longevity of her projects and she encourages other artists to do thorough research before they begin painting.

GOLDEN is continuing research on using acrylics for outdoor application. Please contact us to report your personal experiences or to contribute any information to this ongoing study. www.goldenpaints.com