Canadian Warplane Heritage Mural

Canadian Warplane Heritage Mural

Over view of one of the murals by Lance Russwurm at The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

An overview of part of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum showing one of my murals in the background.

Over a year ago, I was contacted by BGM Imaging, a company in Toronto. They requested that I paint several aviation collages to be photographically blown up into three large murals that would be installed at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario.

The purpose was to show off new digital imaging technology used to greatly enlarge pictures and print them on to a durable vinyl surface which could be applied like wallpaper.

There were three large white spaces above the aircraft restoration areas at the museum which needed some colour. These were actually the walls of upper rooms in which parts of aircraft were stored. They were all eight feet in height and ranged from roughly eighty to forty feet in length.

The themes I chose for the three spaces were....

WWII era Bombers and multi-engined aircraft
WWII era Fighters and other single engined aircraft
The Early Jet age in Canada

These themes, I thought, were in keeping with the museum's mandate. In many cases, I deliberately chose to show aircraft used by Canadians that are NOT represented in the museum's collection. For example.... I was aware that CWH is famous for it's flying Lancaster, VR-A. But, I reasoned, why include it when the real thing will be sitting right beside the mural? So I showed some of the less often painted machines that Canadians proudly served on...the Halifaxes, Wellingtons and Liberators and Bolingbrokes and so on.

The early jets were included because many people will tell you, even today, that the fifties, the era of the AVRO Arrow, was the golden age for aviation in Canada.

The Original paintings that were blown up for the murals on the artist's drawing board

Shown above is a photo I took of the paintings still on my drawing board just before delivery. They were all done in acrylic on Hardboard panels. They were done to scale....the widest (second from top) is exactly eight feet. They are all slightly less than one foot in height so the amount of enlargement necessary works out to something like 800%. Needless to say, I worked even tighter than I usually do on this one!

Following are some more views taken at the Museum. Photography is difficult because there are no clear fields of view and the lighting is dim.

click on a thumbnail to enlarge