Jane Saunders, of Kirkwood, has been working from a cherry picker over the last couple weeks.

But her field isn't construction, except in the artistic sense.

She's been painting a large "transportation through the seasons" mural for the Creation Station play and learning area in the new William R. and Laura Rand Orthwein Education and Visitor Center at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood.

The mural goes across the Creation Station and a hallway and measures 50 feet long by 50 feet wide by 30 feet high.

"The mural shows trains, kites, balloons and all kinds of transportation devices during various seasons of the year, all in a landscape painting," said Saunders, who is a professional artist and teaches art classes at the Willows retirement center.

This museum project is nothing new to Saunders. It's her third mural  for the 12-year-old Creation Station, the brainchild of Terri McEachern, executive director of the museum.

The first mural was done in 2000 in a meeting room of the museum's automobile building.

"A friend, Helen Geldbach, the first woman ever on the museum board, knew I did this kind of work and recommended me for the project," Saunders said.

In 2005, a gift from Jack Taylor of Enterprise Rent A Car allowed the museum to remodel its renamed Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center building and build a new Creation Station in an addition to that building. The original Creation Station space was used to enlarge the automobile display area.

Now, that second Creation Station area will be turned into a display area for cars built in St. Louis around the early 1900s.

"I've made each Creation Station mural different every time," Saunders said. "For the first one, I even painted the ceiling with different weather, like rain, and a night sky. The second had a lot more depiction of landscape. For the third, the shapes are bigger and with more bold colors."

She does no preliminary sketching ahead of time.

"It's totally intuitive, and I paint as I go," Saunders said. "I feel what's right for the space and then I paint it. I was allowed to design what I wanted."

The Creation Station is a play and learning environment for kids 5 and under, who must be accompanied by an adult. Activities include art projects, transportation-related toys, and transportation-related costumes such as pirates and firefighters that kids can dress up in. Special events, like birthday parties, also are hosted there.

"The best part of Creation Station is the people who work there, like Linda MacRunnel who is a female Mr. Rogers and makes huggable helicopters and other projects with the kids," Saunders said.

Sometimes, Saunders' mural projects have been taxing.

"The second was painted in nine 12-hour days, after I'd been in Italy learning to do stone carving and had only those nine days between the time I got home and the station's opening party," Saunders said.

For the current one, she started Jan. 21 with room prep, and the actual painting took 14 days, going through Feb. 3.

Saunders has been an art lover since age 4 when she saw artist Rodney Winfield painting a mural in the old St. Louis Shipbuilding building, built by her father's company, Vollmar Brothers Construction. Winfield later went on to create the moon rock window at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

"I told my mother that's what I want to do when I grow up,'" Saunders recalled.

However, she first spent 30 years as an interior designer. She owned the Loire's company, founded in 1848, which she bought from her boss.

"I had started designing wallpaper and found I much more enjoyed the art world and chose to switch my career about 10 years ago," she said.

She has a degree in fine art from Washington University, where her specialty was painting and drawing. She studied sculpture at Rossi Studio in Italy.

Saunders had a commission in recent years to do a 60,000-pound sculpture for a cemetery in Shelbina, Mo.

"But the best part of doing the Creation Station murals is seeing kids get this 'up' feeling when they come in," Saunders said. "The atmosphere makes them feel happy, with the aura of joyful nature and bright colors."

Since Creation Station started, about 337,000 kids have visited, McEachern said.

"I think Jane's new mural is beautiful, bright and light and just very engaging for children and adults," she said. "Everyone who's walked in the doors has been in awe of the work Jane does."