I have been incredibly busy this summer, I can't even begin to explain, but I was hired to do a mural with at risk youth in Amado, a small town 40 miles south of Tucson, I took the job, which lead to another job, working at the Youth Center itself and a slew of other fun things. Here is a blurb on the mural I wrote recently for a local newspaper:

" Kids from Amado of all ages have been participating in a project that boosts confidence and builds team working skills while keeping them off the streets and is also a lot of fun! I, Leanne C. Miller, along with Compass behavioral Health care, worked with the community in Amado and Green Valley and the other surrounding areas to select some visuals that represented the spirit of the area and it's people. After many meetings and working with the kids at the youth center, I came up with a final drawing which consisted of Elephant Head rock and surrounding landscapes, the Longhorn grill, the Amado Territory, the youth center along with native flora and fauna. Bob and Amy at the De Anza RV park in Amado donated space for us to paint in, and the painting begun after I drew on the images onto the wood panels. The mural, when finished will span 32 feet, and will be 6ft tall! We should be done mid August, just in time for school! When it's done it will sit at the La Sombrilla next to Kristofer's restaurant in Amado, Az. The mural will also travel locally, an exciting aspect that most murals don't have, it will go to local festivals and fairs all over southern Arizona. Keep an eye out mid August for an opening party for the mural we hope to have.

    For more information on Leanne C. Miller, a Graduate student in Fine Art at U of A, see her work atwww.fanciemammal.blogspot.com , for commissions and murals, contact her at oilpaint27@gmail.com.  Also see compasshealthcare.org , befreepima.org , abass@compasshc.org."

Here are the finished original sketches!

 "Elephant Head Rock" over the Amado Territory and the "Long Horn Grill" : above

                                          The Youth Center and the YOUTH! of course!

And,...some fun pics!!

Indiana, her bother Choco and Johnny paintning away!!!

                                           Ok, a selfie.....and the kiddos, working away on 32 feet of mural!

We had a full house this day! Indiana, Johnny, Nettie from Sahaurita High school,  sistersTamika, Kalika and their little brother Mario!

Me, Indiana, Mario, back ground, Nettie(blue hair) Johnny and Kalika and Tamika waaay in the back, 32 feet away!

After a long day of hard work!

Funny face shots....

me n the kids, I'm one of the short ones....

Almost done with mural at "Bite Me' sandwiches, 17th and so. Vanness

Below, you'll see the origional drawing for "Bite Me" sandwiches mural, although side ways.
the "Bite Me" logo, also not finished in this photo. More info below.

Davey helped a little when I was too tired to reach, or just too short.

I have been trying to finnish a mural for my buddy Issacs Sandwich shop this month ( and last), but it's hard when I am on my tip toes on a ladder. I had scaffolding for a few days, but it wasn't mine, so now it's back to ladder status. Hopefully today is the last time I have to do this. It's turned out cool, here are some pics, I'll update when it's officially done! maybe tonight.

Final stages!!! urban share 2010

Well, it's been a long time comin, but the mural is nearing completion. I haven't worked on it in weeks due to working at my regular day jobs 7 days a week for months now. As you can see it is no longer a depressing vacant lot, but the beginnings of a lovely garden!!! What a fantastic site and an honor to have worked on it. Urban share.org is amazing and wonderfully laid back, which is great due to my taking so long to finish it. Thursday I got my friend Vanessa to varnish it while I painted accents on the pilars of vines growing on sticks, better than metal colums I suppose. The curator Tamara Lowenstein has asked me repeatedly what I was going to do with them, I just said," We'll get there when we get there", and were there now! I wasn't sure if anything was gonna be incorporated, but I just couldn't leave them blank. Dan and Vanessa Varela from San Pancho Art Collective helped me all day, then out for a few margeritas after! Nice day!












My muscle man pose is on top of a pile of manure, like fertilizer, nothing was gonna get in my way of these finishing touches! Although I am not quite done, maybe one more coat of varnish and some more vines painted between the panels, but then it will be done. On to the next I hope! The SFAC Street Smarts program is starting off a little slow, haven't been paired up with a property owner yet. But thats o.k., They said it could be up to a year! I should book something in between I suppose If I wanna keep on the mural tip, which I do. Especially now that it's spring and summer, gloriouse summer!
Next week is going to be crazy busy!
Monday I am helping my friend Aki
at the White walls gallery for an opening
that will be on april 2nd. Aki, (also known as Akira Beard), is having myself and his girlfriend, Helen Bayly paint a mural
as a back drop for his work. I am excited as Whitewalls is super awesome, Aki is super awesome and I get to work with Helen again on something large scale!! She helped me do the mural on 6th and market, " Find Yourself in Natural History". Also April 1st Helen is having an opening at Cafe Royal 7-10pm in the tenderloin, at 800 post st. Her paintings are amazing! and I mean amazing!! Also next week is The haight st. Art walk, Pure Beauty will be featuring Katie Gray 6-8pm!! Yeah!! Thats friday the 2nd. I will be at PB till 8 and then on down to white walls 8 till obliteration station!! woohoo!!!
-Leanne C. Miller

The raccoon is fixed, me and Helen made it out there today. There were a bunch of other tags too, we got em all...hopefully there will be no more.
Yeah!

Today was a fixer-uper, someone tagged the deer last week. Part of the contract is that we keep it cleaned up...so I went, with a cold and all to clean it up. From afar it's fine, but up close it's a little murky, I did'nt have any paint left from the original cans, so it was a bit of a random mixing frenzy, but not too bad! The funny thing is that the whole wall is gray, it was designed in part to work with the nature of the area it's in, ie: plenty of space to tag with out ruining the plants and animals!!! But that's o.k., I knew it would happen and am thrilled that two tags in 4 months ain't bad!!! As far as other art news goes, The Urban Share Mural, given if there is no rain and I'm not too ill,.. will hopefully be finished this week!! Yeah!! Ok., thats all for now...
Leanne C. Miller

cool panoramic photos of SFAC mural 2009

Christo from San Pancho Art Collective hooked me up with a dude who took these pics for me. soooo AWESOME!!!

and it goes, onandonandonandon!!!! 01/11/2010

Yesterday was all about details, some shading, cleaning up lines...putting little shines on the lady bug wings....just a few hours out there, had other stuff to do, but an other wise productive bit of time....
The top right are huge potatoes growing out of the ground, when all is done there will be wood cut outs "growing" out of the top as a plant. As if the mural goes beyond the box. it's painted in! And here above is a "happy little squash", as Bob Ross would say. I think you can tell from that picture you can see the textures I am dealing with, it's very difficult to paint on this surface with out it having that.."crayon" effect. I have to thin out the paint and paint each thing 2 or 3 times sometimes just to fill in all the cracks and dots that don't get paint in them. It's a lot of work to be doing for free. But it's a good cause, their garden is really coming along, they installed wall plots over an area of the wall that was chronically being graffitied over, took care of that!! See their progress at ...www.urbanshare.blogspot.com or TamaraLowenstein.wordpress.com! Thanks for checkin this out!! Don't know when I'll find time to be out again, but I hope it's soonder than later!!
-Leanne C. Miller, fanciemammal

Muraling in the freezing cold, but hey, it's still muraling!

Oh yes, It was a cold one today, the coldest so far! At 5:30 when we were all done for the day, I thought I had some sort of frost bite on my toes, being they were frozen and I couldnt even feel them! I rode my bike home, thought I'd get my blood flowing in the process, but nooooo, My toes didn't thaw for like an HR!!!
Otherwise, I have had some excellent help lately, mostly from fellow artists! Therefore this means they know what they are doing and do it well! I have to give a shout out to Rafael, an old friend from SFAI, Alexa Frasier Herron, also a buddy from SFAI, and up and coming film maker, check out her film collective Scary Cow, Dan Stromberg http://chilibean.biz/, and Paul Jimenez from San Pancho Art Collective. These people are so hard core that they painted with me all day, even in the 40 degree weather! I love the feeling of community I am getting lately!
Speaking of community, San Pancho Art Collective had its first ever fundraiser! Not sure how much we raised but it was so much fun! I was raffle girl, I tried to speak on stage but my voice didn't carry like Socratese! Our MC for da night and SPAC member, Persia on stage was on fire! Her voice carried us thru the raffle with ease and clarity!!! We raffled off all kinds of goodies, like origional art from nining Muir, and a live painting made right there in front of everyone by Eli Lippert from Precite Eyes Murals!!! It was a hit BTW!!! Every one wanted that piece! It was crazy!! I recommend next time we do this event, YOU SHOULD GO!!! We even did it up with free BBQ!!
Anyhow, Its been busy busy round here!! Come check out da mural at gouph and eddy, ya gotta check it out thru a chain link fence but it's lookin good, only have 2 panels left to start on, out of nine! I'm so proud of all us SF artists makin it happen!! I lost my camera, hopefully I will be able to start posting photos again, Santa are you listening!!! Ha! OK thanks for reading, have a great couple days until I can post again!!!

more pics from today!! Wed nov 25th 2009

Here are some not so hot pics from my cell phone! Todays progress! Not raining at least! Let me know what cha think!
-Leanne C. Miller

Urban share..rainout!!!

Yes, today was supposed to be a second full day of mural madness for urbanshare, but alas, rain came and rained on our parade. Two hours of working in contstant drizzle, and we finally said no more. BOO!!! Oh well, slow and steady wins the race!! This mural will be a lovely addition to the community garden, I am excited none the less. Check out their blog for the St. Paulus site, Gough and Eddy in SF, here's the link.
http://urbanshare.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Paulus%20Lutheran I will post some pics one we finish a few panels!! Let me know if u wanna help!
-Leanne C. Miller

Almost finished Mural, Wed. Oct 21st...Super awesome

Yes, Super Awesome....super super awesome!!! So many peeps showing up and helping out, almost randomly! A few people were scheduled some were just drop in's, but either way, I am impressed!
Pear Art Store showed much love again. let us use their ladder, their drill, their epoxy...they just keep helpin on stop!!! I LOVE PEARL!! People walking by loved it, and most were very supportive. There are always the few grumps, or nay sayers, even the deer we put up just yesterday had damage to it this morning, but nothing some wood glue staples and nails can't fix. Graffiti is also inevitable...but it's o.k.,... it's all worth it, even if we gotta go back and fix it up from time to time! We more or less finished it today, but may add some clouds tomorrow, there is a lot of empty space. Thank you San Pancho Art Collective, Paul showed up and helped clean up some messy parts we had goin on, and helped hammer and screw in some parts, Brad K Alder from 111 Minna, and just a long time buddy,.. came out and brought a drill, helped secure the wood cut out animals to the wall and we all had a beer afterwards..good times!!! I and Helen will also be in Sketch tuesdays again at 111 minna tuesday, so please come out and support, and don't forget the mural/sfac art in storefronts opening friday night 5-7pm, central market, 6th and market!!!

Long day of exaustive, awesome muraling...oct. 20th 2009

Hi all, Today was a great day of Muraling!!! Sunday Helen and I went out and did some out lines of buildings on the space at 6th and market next to Pearl Art. By the way, Pearl has always been my favorite art store in all of SF, but now I have a renewed love and respect. They have helped us from the beginning!! They let us borrow their ladder, and store our paint in their back room, and have just been so nice, come out to talk and all kinds of good stuff!!! Much love to Pearl, and their prices are good too!!! If you can, give em' a good yelp or something!!! Such positive supporters of art!!! and artists!!
Speaking of awesome support, Jin and Ray from San Pancho Art Collective came out today, they helped paint with rollers, and use Jins car, ..they helped detail and clean up the images, they were so great, supportive and awesome! I can't thank them enough, and great artists too! We got a lot done, although we had a crazy young gutter punk type say he was going to "F#$k up" our mural when we were done... Hopefully he was just mean and didn't mean it...I can't imagine what he could possibly have against our Native plants and animals of the Bay Area, I mean, who doesn't want to "Find Themselves in Nautral History"...haha!!! Thats the name of the piece, " Find yourself in natural history.". So check out the piece as of today, and BTW, thanks to all those who also came out and just said hi!!! We love love love to say hi to everyone who comes by, Marty, Brad, Micheal, ETC... u know who you are!!!