Murals

Several large murals have been painted to compliment the Urban Art Trail with artwork donated by San Diego illustrators Gerald Bustamante and Rafael López. A simple graphic style was developed for these murals to maximize success. We directly contacted privately owned buildings and warehouses in downtown San Diego to secure permission to paint murals on desirable walls along the trail. It was our objective to put art in hot spots to beautify the areas and curb illegal activity. Using a digital camera we photographed these locations and using Adobe Photoshop placed the artwork on the image to show the owners and city how the mural would improve the area. Seeing is believing. The mural art was approved by the redevelopment agency and a grid was applied to the two dimensional mural artwork. Each mural surface was first prepared by painting the wall white. We work with scaffolding or a scissor lift to reach the tall areas. You can rent this equipment and it makes the job easier. Using a chalk snap line we measured the walls into sections and snapped the grid in place. A crew of 3-4 people with a good eye transferred the design to each wall using pencil. The mural designer checked the artwork and then we brought in crews to apply paint to sections. We use Frazee dura-tec water based paint for our murals and coat them with UV protective coat.