Belmont Park, San Diego
Greetings from Belmont Park in the Mission Beach neighborhood of San Diego.
This is our fifth mural in San Diego in addition to North Park, Little Saigon, Seaport Village & Liberty Station. We keep getting drawn back to this beautiful city over the years and there’s no complaints from our end! We even considered settling in San Diego while we were on the road since we used to spend almost every winter out this way in the RV.
One our our first murals we worked on together before we left New York in 2015 was the Greetings from Coney Island mural in Brooklyn. Eight years later, we are now creating a similar themed mural on the opposite end of the country for Belmont Park. Needless to say, we’ve learned quite a lot on our journey over the years and have changed a lot from our life experiences since.
The Giant Dipper rollercoaster from Belmont Park originally made an appearance in the Greetings from San Diego mural in North Park. It was our first Greetings Tour mural in California in January 2016. Who would have thought we would be back to collaborate with the actual amusement park on a mural at the boardwalk so many years later! Last year, we had returned to touch up our mural at Liberty Station and add a backside design to our postcard mural. We also ended up staying a few blocks away from Belmont Park at an Airbnb during that trip. It was the first time we got to experience the area in the winter time which certainly has a completely different vibe than summer.
The Greetings from Belmont Park mural design was created in collaboration with the amusement park itself. This happened to be their 98th year anniversary along with a rebrand that was incorporated into the design. We were honored to create a new landmark feature of the park that will help create more memories for generations to come.
Learning from a few recent murals, we collaborated with our friends Dave & Oscar of Grand Prestoz to help put up the mural sketch and background before we arrived. We’ve developed a new process where we do all the pre-production work from home and ship it out to either local artists or our assistants to help prep. These days, our family time has priority over everything else and we work really hard on making sure every mural is planned as efficiently as possible. Even though we have a team of reliable artists that can technically travel anywhere, we still try to work with local artists when possible to keep the spirit of the project alive.
Even with all the prep work, things do not always go entirely to plan. In this case, we ran into an issue with our masking pulling off the base primer. Luckily, we figured out that a heat gun did the trick to removing any tape or vinyl by softening the adhesive properties. Thanks to the Belmont Park maintenance crew for coming through with the extension cord and heat gun. Since we use so much spray paint, the process took twice the time to slowly remove any masking. We also totally underestimated the length of time it takes to paint all the straight lines of a roller coaster structure, oops!
Painting at a beautiful beach and amusement park in the middle of summer was quite the people watching experience. It turned out that the mural location was the meetup spot for Worldwide Roll Out Day. We were unexpectedly surrounded at 10am by roller skaters of all ages who weren’t afraid of dancing in public. It was quite the colorful morning scene providing a fun and upbeat atmosphere. Everyone was just happy to be there, which is the general vibe we’ve experienced in San Diego.
Special thanks to Victor’s parents for coming out to help watch our son, Felix, the first few days so both of us could work together. We also finally got to collaborate with a fellow mural artist parent, Hanna’s Murals on this project. She stopped by to help paint the little kids and cone details in the Tilt-A-Whirl image. Similar to us, she has a passion for travel and we’ve been assured it gets a bit easier to travel with kids as they get older. Thank you for the help and support, Hanna!
Hannas Murals
Victor Ving
Kayla Watson
Finally, our heartfelt appreciation goes to Kayla Watson, whose unwavering support and advocacy have been instrumental in bringing this project to fruition and guiding us throughout the installation process. We are truly hopeful that this endeavor will transform into a cherished landmark within the community. The moment the barricades were removed, the atmosphere immediately buzzed with excitement as photoshoots and selfies took center stage. Anticipation grows as we eagerly await the steady stream of photos & memories being created in the years to come!
“Working with Victor and Lisa has been the highlight of my year! Their professionalism, attention to detail, dedication to the craft and raw talent is unmatched in this industry. The Greetings Tour mural became Belmont’s most photographed and shared art installation before the paint had finished drying!”
Thank you to our supply sponsors:
Montana Cans | Sherwin Williams
Letter Guide:
BELMONT — Giant Dipper Rollercoaster
PARK — Tilt-A-Whirl
Year: 2023
Mural Size: 15'H x 23'W
Location: 3105 Ocean Front Walk, San Diego, CA 92109 (Belmont Park)
