What is a Goofy Grid?
If you’ve walked down Main Street at all in the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed something different about the wall behind Parking Lot #24 – a strange mix of symbols and phrases, painted green against a dark backdrop.
This is Oscar Joyo’s goofy grid – the first step to starting work on the Main Street Mural.
Traditionally, many artists are taught to use a square grid to map and scale their images for murals. While square grids can be more precise, Oscar says he likes the goofy grid because it’s more fun and helps him get out of his nerves a little bit.
The first step in creating the goofy gird is to paint the wall a base color. From there, Oscar covers the wall in letters and numbers and squiggles and symbols.
“A goofy grid is a series of ‘whatevers’ that you want to put on the wall,” Oscar said.
Once he’s finished painting the symbols and squiggles, he takes a picture of the goofy grid and uploads it into either photoshop or procreate. From there, he overlays the mural image onto the grid. This creates a guide for Oscar to paint the mural on the wall.
“It’s kind of a connect the dots in a way. So it makes it really really easy,” he said.
This past week, Oscar also sketched out the flowers on the bottom of the mural, and Hope began installing tiles.
Painting on the rest of the mural is expected to begin in the next few days. Until then, Oscar has dotted the wall with a few specific messages to let people know what’s going on.
“There’s been about five occurrences where someone thought I was doing witchcraft on the wall,” he chuckled, “so I always write ‘this is a grid, not witch craft!’”
Either way, we can’t wait to experience the magic he creates once painting begins!
The Main Street Mural is made possible by community members like you! Your donation will help pay for permitting, paint, supplies, on-going maintenance and more.
Be a part of creating a piece of Evanston history. Donate today!