Zombie Proof
Worcester, Massachusetts

Safe House at Night
This drawing is depicting a family gathering for the night and settling into a good meal while the lights from the house cast out on to foreboding creatures on their lawn.

Cast Aways
The shadows of the zombies are being projected from the light generated by the theoretical kitchen windows as well as the lamps in the dining room.

40 Feet of Fury
The museum has finally decided to treat themselves right and have acquired a 40 foot fiberglass extension ladder. On the one day of the year we get to draw at the museum, this now allows us to reach the third and fourth stories. In this case we used that advantage to literally draw the third and fourth stories of a building. To safely move this ladder, we can not recommend enough using three people.

Kay Nine
Ok. I admit it. I spent a half an hour this week looking at a website dedicated to the vests and armor they put on attack dogs. It's called: www.k9storm.com/home.html I had felt a little guilty about getting sucked into all the different outfits they can wear. Did you know that dogs can have repelling outfits? Or ones for jumping out of planes? Well, my guilt is now chalked up to "light research" and I was able to draw this dog in a few minutes as I conjured up images in my mind of german shepherds super mad at stuff they have been trained to bark and bite.

Blades
There were many comments on the grass. A fair amount of the grass was drawn rising up as an extension of the real grass that was already there. For the most part, the green tape disappears on the concrete surface. To remedy this vanishing act and add an extra horizontal area of dual-color, we had the grass overlap a solid blue plane of tape.

A Beloved Space to Draw
This photograph does justice to this wonderfully approachable space created by the museum buffering itself to the nearest public street. The lightly sloping grass and thoughtfully gathered stairs make the drawing readily and willingly accessible by even the most casual passerby. As a public space, we have always had great interactions at this wall. The nearby street also offers three lanes to travel in and thusly allows curious drivers to slow down and look at the drawing without interrupting the flow of traffic. At night, the lighting makes the space additionally attractive and we have always been delighted by how welcoming this scenario is for members of the public to approach us.

Firm Foundation
This photograph shows a cross section of a cross section of the house. The legs of the people attending dinner can be seen and the hints of the real grass is visible at the bottom.

Slice 'Em and Dice 'Em
Upstairs in the foundry, a family member works on sharpening a machete. The tiny pieces of tape used to show sparks from the grinder were given a lot of attention by those who spent time with the drawing. In general, tape that has the freedom to perform like "action lines" or give a sense of moment or direction often illicit positive responses. Falling water, drifting smoke, smashing glass, snow, rain and fire may someday all make their way into one drawing. Prepare yourself.

Public Art 101
Taking into account that people have a tendency to read drawings from the bottom to the top...and taking into account that there may be some who would not be pleased by an innocent/gleeful display of zombie-neutralizing weapons, we added some visual delight. We hope that the eye's journey would gladly drift up to the attic full of (adorable and playful) cats directly above the weapon room. Or if you want to stay in the weapon room, we invite you to conjure up images of the brave soul that heads straight for the boxing gloves when danger approaches.

Stepping Out
Each of the zombies has a footprint that gives us a tiny insight into their pre-haunting-the-earth life. We liked the idea that the footprints would be the only clear indicator of them as people and that the shadows would be allowed to be disfigured apparitions of their lurching selves.

For Your Approval - Cats
Having been "blessed" with spending time with cats, their "range" of expressions and actions comes easily to us. A small part of me wishes the attic was three times longer so I could really display the full spectrum of cat nonsense. Perhaps the next drawing will have a forth floor.

When Whiskers Collide
We drew: basket of cats, jumping cat, cat in bucket, cats with yarn, cats mirroring each other, cats destroying your favorite chair, cats pawing under furniture, cats staring over edges and a few lazy cats to keep it real.

The Truth About Our Drawings
The truth is, we just draw the outlines to the work and then have an army of young artists who have applied as interns come in and fill in all the details. Unfortunately they don't have the manual dexterity to rip tape yet, so we end up focusing all our energy on that. We have to rethink our hiring processes.

Snakes with Purpose
No photograph accurately captures the number and vicinity of snakes at this drawing. But no matter where you found them, they were all pointed directly at a well set dining room table.

The Grand Chef of Calm
In the inherent face of doom, our chef prepares a meal for the guests. Outside on the porch, the dog is beginning to lose his mind (as a figure of speech, not literally... though these are zombies we are talking about, so there is the outside chance that these mind-oriented skull connoisseurs could be the dog's undoing.)

Building On Buildings
On a few occasions we have found ourselves drawing buildings on top of buildings. Because we draw everything life-sized, these drawn buildings are by default always smaller than their host. We have talked about what a great tool it would be for architects to envision the usage or scale of new buildings if they could simply render a version of their plans on the nearest, biggest structure. It took us one day to build this house and two days to inhabit and adorn it.

Forty Footers
The return of the big one. The first time we were given a 40 footer was for a drawing made in Cleveland, Ohio in 1992. It was made of wood. Less of a ladder, it was more of a fabricated-for-television strongman test. This fiberglass goliath was a treat to work with and truly gave us the chance to make a drawing the height that it needed to be.

Gorgeous
Three days of splendid weather made for a splendid mural. Since this drawing was the 17th drawing we had done on this wall in almost as many years, we have witnessed some of the worst that mother nature can stir up in the Springtime. Many of the people who have watched us build these drawings over the years can not shake the memories of the record breaking rain falls that we weathered through on more than one occasion. The indelible memory of our drenched corpses working on our tape drawings have left many with a sense the wall is cursed. When the weather is this good, it is satisfying to draw people who have a curse themselves.

Leaving It
There are many, many, many different ways to draw tree leafs. For a representation of Springtime - nothing beats just quick, staccato pieces of tape. In order to relieve the potentially arduous task of removing thousands of pieces of tiny tape, these leafs were not "patted down" and therefore flattened to the wall. The slightly lifted edges assisted us greatly by allowing a baseball-sized ball of tape to be used as an eraser when rubbed quickly against the raised edges.

Dining In
In a world where the very foundation of your safety is jeopardized the second you step outside, there is a lot more dining in. For potential threats to this dinner party, please see zombies in the other photographs of this mural.

PanoRama!
This is a panorama put together with a program on the iPhone called Photosynth. You can see an interactive, turning version of it here: photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=a3f59a87-4164-4427-b7bf-fff8... .
It is worth the time to see this version, because it is the only documentation that truly gives a feeling for the drawing in relationship to the space around it.

Tools of the Trade
Here is the door to our studio.
Here is the door to our studio with a lot of boxes of tape in front of it.

Shadows of Our Shadows
The very first zombie shadow we drew on the ground was there over the course of four days. Every night the grass under the tape become moist. During the day it dried out, but was blocked from direct sunlight. Then a dozen people sat on it for an hour. On the fourth day, the tape was mercilessly removed by elementary school children. The result? A really subtle aftermath of the zombie shadow etched on to the grass. In this picture, the gentleman in red shirt is standing upright where the zombie would have stood.

Bringing It
This young guy was brought by his Mom to the mural for the sole purpose of transforming it from a delicately constructed piece of artwork into a massive ball of tape. He brought it. This guy was unstoppable. He removed everything from fine details and eyelashes to massive bodies of bodies.

Snake in the Grass
This snake never knew what hit him. The entire drawing was removed in less than 45 minutes. The main body of the work was gone in under 15 minutes, but ultimately the leaves and cats drawn in the attic stretched out the time it took to make the work disappear.

Undead Hunching
To illustrate the idea that standing, physical creatures were present on the grass and thusly able to cast shadows we decided to draw the zombies in two parts. With green tape we drew the contact of their feet to the ground and with the blue we drew the stretching shadows spilling out over the lawn away from the house.

Exponential Foliage
According to this photograph, spending two days on a ladder ripping thousands of proportionally sized pieces of green tape to illustrate a blooming tree qualifies under the auspices of art. Barbara put the arches of her feet to the test on the ladder to bring this tree to life.

All Hands On Deck
In the foreground: Colin wraps up work on a drawing of a chair.
Further down the wall: Leah meticulously constructs a potted fern in the dining room.

Night and Day
This photograph, taken in the stark light of day, shows the Survivors house as they settle down to dinner after the sun has set. On the first floor we see the family dining. The second floor features not only a weapons cache, but a working foundry. And the attic is predictably filled with cats.

Public Workplace
The drawing was started on Wednesday at 1 PM. Within the first five hours we had a basic structure for the house, the beginning of a tree, the family members on the first floor and some test zombies and snakes in the grass. The weather was wonderful for all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and created a great atmosphere for the public to come by and chat us up while we worked.

Staring Down Stairs
This photograph shows the legs of one of the zombie shadows spilling down the stairs toward the frothing jaws of a protective canine.

Bark Bark
The tree and dog at night. The tree was drawn to give a sense of a tree in the early stages of Spring. The dog is the first indication to the people inside that lumbering mindmunchers are approaching.

A Rippling Effect
The drawing was intended to show a scene happening at night. The street light swimming across our zombie shadows were consistently mesmerizing.

Perfect Storm
Finally! A new era of drawing with blue tape. We have scoured the earth looking for a blue tape that is usable for drawing and only recently found one that we can endorse. (And yes we have tried that blue painters tape that you bought recently at your local hardware store.) This is our 17th drawing on this wall and the first one since 1998 where we had a ladder or lift that could elevate us over 37 feet. The weather was charming. The company was terrific. The public was visibly excited about the drawing. The local burritos were amazing.

Unlive Cam
During the creation of this work we had the opportunity to set up a live cam pointed at the wall while we slowly added tape to it. For dozens of hours, the camera fed out to the world a steady stream of Tape Artists participating in the slowest performance art in the world. Amazingly, the live webcam actually encouraged people to jump in their cars and come visit.

A Closer Look
In this miraculously focused (no tripod) photograph (7 second exposure) we get a chance to take in a child blacksmith and working grinder on the second floor. We are working from the assumption that the constant and noisy state of preparedness is widely accepted by all who make their home in this abode. Directly above the kitchen are the survivalist food containers. Above the dining table, a weapon storeroom.

Angle of Attack
All the shadows of zombies and their corresponding snake droves are all pointed directly at the dining party. The shadows on the stairs were particularly attractive at night.

Caught in the Act
This photograph comes closer to the actual presence of the zombie figures in the grass and on the concrete. The eerie warm lights from the street lamps mixing with the white lights cast by the museum made for brackish projections across the blue layered tape on the ground.

Long in the Tooth
One zombie was given the privilege of having an open mouth. Anyone that is familiar with how we traditionally approach Tape Art drawings will know that this means that since we could see the surface through the mouth and the rest of the figure was drawn as a filled-in positive/opaque surface - that means that there is no back to the mouth - so this zombie has the back half of his head missing. This mouth goes from being a blessing to being yet another curse for this undead coffin-shedder.

Not an Ice Cream Cone
This is a plant. Specifically it is a decorative plant found in a small vase on the first floor of the house to greet guests that come through the front door. Though, in our minds, no one really uses the doors that much and they have all buckled down to ride out their impending doom. At least they have nice little plants to keep them company.

Lightly Shredded
After three days of drawing we gave a presentation to around 250 people. The people were invited to sit on the drawings that populated the grass. Many a smushed snake and zombie later, they all made their wandering exits to go about their own business. All the drawings on the ground remained perfectly in tact, with the exception of this tiny little claw-mark type interruption on one of the figures. We like to think that a cougar sat there for the presentation and left this mark as their only evidence.

Post-Live Cams
Below are the two largest live recording feeds that we had during the creation of this drawing. We have a boombox playing music while we are taping... so if you want 16 hours of slow drawing and the jams of the 70's, 80's and 90's... then these recordings are for you.

Wednesday Live

Thursday Live