I'm back....though I was never really gone

I have been somewhat M.I.A. lately due to a side project that I took on.  I was graced with the joy of creating another mural.  This time, I only had to travel back to my hometown of Lemont to paint...quite convenient for stopping by my parent's for Mom's home cooking and a dip in the hot tub after a long day's work.  Lemont's best kept secret is slowly being unveiled (if I have anything to do with it).  The Inn at Smokey Row is a lovely bed and breakfast that has been in its location of downtown Lemont for a little over a year now, but nobody seems to know about it.  To liven the place up a bit and give guests a little more than a place to stay, Sue and Gary, owners of the inn, asked me to paint a mural in the hallway entrance.  You can see that the initial look of the entrance was not quite as inviting as you'd hope for.

 With a couple coats of paint and some Lemont history research, a once dreary stairway got a total makeover.

Kind of tough taking pictures of a stairway wall, but you get the idea. There's a cute little downtown scene on the bottom right, a showcase of the many steeples up top and an old canal depiction of the "Smokey Row" days on the bottom left.

You can see that I also gave the stairs some life....Lemont limestone!

Now that I'm back from my blogging hiatus, I'll be sure to not leave such a huge gap between this post and my next one.  Stay tuned!