Greetings from San Diego! We had a blast painting the mural in North Park. Thank you Jason Lee & Edwin Negado for the connections on getting this perfect wall location. San Diego native & local artist, Persue, was our guest artist who incorporated his well known "Bunny Kitty" into the "I" of our Greetings from San Diego mural. As always, we appreciate the support from Montana Cans for supplying the spray paint. An extra special thank you to The El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association for covering the cost of supplies for this project!

Greetings from San Diego Mural in North Park

As usual, we started this mural by asking locals for advice on what images paint within the letters. One of our favorite concepts (from Jason Lee) was a tribute to the skate culture with an iconic photo of Matt Hensley doing an ollie under the 805 (SD) freeway. After posting a rough sketch, we quickly took out the Chargers logo since we were in town at a time when they were about to move to LA and locals were not very happy about it. We decided to remove the sports logos all together for licensing reasons. One of the most suggested elements to add was a dedication to Chicano culture which is big here in San Diego being so close to the Mexican border. We tried hard to find a local Chicano artist to help paint a traditional style mural into the "E" but because of our limited time, we had to improvise. However, we were very happy with the overall results!

Sketch of San Diego Outdoor Postcard Mural - WIP

For the background colors, we went with a coastal theme of beach and sky due to the location of the city on the Pacific Ocean. While it’s a coastal city, the North Park neighborhood is inland and we wanted to provide a calming sense of nature to the urban environment. There were tons of characters passing by and we had a great time chatting with the local community. As part of our mission, building a connection with the locals is top priority. We want to give the neighborhood a sense of ownership so that they can help maintain the artwork even long after we are gone. As a result, this is one of the reasons why we try to partner with local artists on each of our murals.

WIP Greetings from San Diego Wall Art with Scaffolding

Victor never had a proper fine art education and learned most of his craft through his graffiti background in New York. It’s been a wonderful learning experience to work with different mediums including traditional brush.

Victor Ving with Tape Roll - San Diego Street Art

Persue - Greetings from San Diego Graffiti Art

Local California artist, Persue sketching out the Bunny Kitty "I" in San Diego above. Dave “Persue” has been an influential figure in the graffiti scene for a long time. He has a rich history in design within the skate culture as well. We were more than honored to collaborate with him on this mural. With our local artist collaborations, we always give creative freedom to do what they do best. In this case, his Bunny Kitty character was representative of Comic Con which started in San Diego and has now become a global phenonemon.

American & Mexican Flag - San Diego Mural in North Park

Balboa Park & Belmont Park - Original Painting

According to a roller coaster club member who passed by the wall, she said that the Giant Dipper from Belmont Park featured in the "O" was one of two original wooden coasters left on the west coast.

San Diego Ballet in front of SD Mural - California

To celebrate the completion of the mural, we invited the San Diego Ballet to come dance in front of the completed Greetings from San Diego wall. Lisa had grown up dancing and studied Dance at Ohio University. She met Susan in school and she now dances with the SD Ballet. Thank you to all the dancers who came out for the photo shoot!

In conclusion, we wanted to thank San Diego for all of the positive feedback from this project. This was our first mural in California and it opened up a lot local opportunities for us. San Diego will forever have a special place in our hearts. Thanks for all of the reviews on Google and Yelp too!

“The Greetings from San Diego mural is just a block away from my shop and very rarely do I pass the wall without seeing an impromptu photo shoot in front of it with tourists and locals alike. It’s been such a positive destination spot for our community here in North Park (San Diego.)”

— Edwin Negado / Founder of Swish Projects

“The San Diego mural is a stop on everyone’s tour of North Park. There are visitors from all over the world snapping souvenir pictures and often browsing the shops around the mural. It has positively impacted the neighborhood and my business by being a centerpiece and landmark.”

— Chris Clark / Founder of Shaper Studios