A cowboy boots mural will be unveiled this Thursday in Lampasas, a town in the Texas Hill Country, says a recent article in the Statesman. What makes this mural so special is that the cowboy boots depicted in the mural actually belong to townspeople.

Last spring, Lampasas civic leaders put out a “boot call,” and from that they got about 150 pairs of cowboy boots to work with. Each pair was photographed portrait-style before eventually being a part of a large group shot from above by Kellie Hughes, a local photographer. After the photo was taken, the cowboy boots’ owners took them home.

But as for the mural, it had a way to go from that point — this was just the beginning. Two months ago volunteers started work on painting by using a paint-by-numbers method. This was a smart choice considering the size of the project: the mural is 15 feet by 45 feet.

Volunteers also made the painting process go smoothly by taking the cowboy boots photograph, converting it to a computer image with reduced hues and tones, and dividing the image into a 75-square grid. Each of those 75 squares measured three feet by three feet, and then a color transparency was made for each of those squares so that the images could be traced onto the wall.

Volunteers ran into a few minor snags while they were creating the cowboy boots mural. On one day, rain washed away the numbers on the wall, so they had to be rewritten. Another incident happened where the first three sections were drawn upside-down. Both of these incidents were fixed, thanks to the hardworking volunteers.

Ready to finally be unveiled this Thursday, the cowboy boots mural will show off the 150 pairs of colorful cowboy boots that belong to residents of Lampasas. There were eight volunteers who primarily worked on the mural, but anyone who stopped by was allowed to get a paint brush and help out. So it’s a community mural in every sense.

If you’re able to, visit Lampasas this Thursday to check out the unveiling of their new cowboy boots mural. They’ll be celebrating with a free outdoor chili supper.

Tags: Boots, cowboy boots, lampasas, texas, western wear

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