Greetings from Grand Ledge, MI. We can’t believe this is our third mural in Michigan in 2021. Our friends in East Lansing notified us of a grant opportunity for a mural project in Grand Ledge. They happened to be looking for a postcard style mural which was exactly what we do. Since we were coming back for a mural in Jackson, why not apply and try to paint them both in one trip? We were honored to be awarded this grant and ended up painting two murals back to back here in Michigan!

This project was unique and exciting to us because we were tasked with fabricating an exterior canvas that would be installed on the facade of the building. In the past, we’ve painted on an outdoor canvas in Golden, CO. However, that one was already built and setup for us. For the Grand Ledge mural, it was a 10’ H x 20’ W canvas with a welded frame and Alumalite panels (similar to Dibond) for the face. As a result, the exterior sturdy canvas would endure the harsh Michigan weather with no issues! Thank you to our team at Hejka Studio in Detroit for building this off site and helping with both the prep & installation.

Due to our tight time schedule painting two outdoor murals back to back, we had to work on both murals at once. While we were in Jackson finishing up our mural, we had one of our assistants head out to Grand Ledge to get started on laying down some color of the lettering outlines and the 3D.

We drove up to Grand Ledge to start the mural immediately after finishing the Jackson mural. It was a good thing we had the prep help because the forecast showed a lot of rain during the originally planned painting days. As a result, we decided to just go full steam ahead and try to complete the mural in one day! We took a quick stroll around town and walked down to the Grand River to get a view of one of the scenes we would be painting. The town’s hand painted water tower made it look like a scene right out of the mid century. It was very fitting for our postcard style!

Some interesting history we learned was that Grand Ledge used to be a resort area in the 1870’s with the new found to the railroad access. A dam was even built to reduce the risk of flooding in the area. You can read all about the Seven Islands Resort on the Grand Ledge Historical Society website. There was even one of the first rollercoasters in Michigan built over the waterway here at one point. An interesting “one way” ride at the time that stopped at a few of the islands on the river. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to incorporate this interesting story into the mural imagery but wanted to share about it on the blog.

Unlike the previous mural in Jackson that was completely in the shade, this canvas was installed fully in the sun! Back at the wall, Victor threw on his sun hat and got right to work. Because a lot of our budget was dedicated to the fabrication of the canvas, we simplified the content of this piece to contain two organic images of local iconic landscapes. We steered away from using any masking inside the piece as well as not using any stencil caps to get the extremely fine detail we normally do in pieces. As a result, this speeds up our painting process. At the end of the day, we don’t like to sacrifice good art for the sake of fitting a budget. We still went beyond our commitment and trued to add as much detail as possible!

Thank you again to the Grand Ledge Chamber of Commerce for having us. Michigan has quickly become a state that now hosts a lot of our public murals. We hope that our murals will spark more murals with local artists in the area after we are gone.

“Victor and Lisa were so easy to work with and brought to life the concept and images of Grand Ledge to make our mural representative of our town. Their team tackled the custom canvas fabrication and installation to make the artwork moveable for future purposes.”

— Amy Hoyes / Executive Director, Grand Ledge Chamber of Commerce