Greetings from Denver Mural Sign - Highlands CO

Greetings from Denver! Our latest community postcard mural is located in the Highlands at Platte and 17th St on the side of Denver Beer Co. Thank you for your support and daily brews. In addition, a special thanks to Denver Art Museum and local artist Jolt aka Guerilla Garden for coming out to collaborate! We even added 100 cards to our large letter postcard collection here in Denver from postcard collector, Dede. Thank you for helping us overcome the effects of altitude out here in the mile high city! Read all out our Denver mural experience below.

Measuring & Preparing the Greetings from Denver Mural

When we arrived in Denver, we drove all over in our RV hunting for walls. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any luck as we were turned down time and time again. Usually, people think that we are trying to sell them something and don’t understand that we are essentially gifting a piece of true community art. As we were about to give up, we stumbled upon the Highlands area. We found a potential wall at Denver Beer Co. and walked in to talk to the business owner. Luckily, one of the founders (Patrick Crawford) happened to be there and was totally on board with the idea. They just happened to be looking for a mural artist to commission a piece and it was perfect timing. In addition, the Greetings from Denver postcard concept was perfect because their business name was literally “Denver” Beer Co! We love when things come together so naturally.

Firstly, we got to measuring out the wall space. Secondly, we came up with a design that scaled to the area we could work within. We focused on the Colorado flag as inspiraton for our background colors. Thirdly, we spoke to local businesses and residents about what we should include inside the letters. We also reached a local artist to collaborate with us on this mural. Finally, we setup our RV next to the wall and got to work! We even slept next to the mural in our RV for the whole week during the painting process.

Greetings Tour RV setup during Mural Painting in Denver

In the image above, you can see our RV (Honeybear) used to say “Greetings From” but we eventually changed it to “Greetings Tour.” We also used to have an awning that unforunately got lost in an accident years later. Having a remote home on wheels is so convienent when painting murals! The hardest part is getting a parking space near a wall in some of the larger cities.

Victor Ving Paints Greetings from Denver Mural Wall Art

Denver Beer Co. was kind enough to supply a scissor lift for us for this mural. While it’s possible to paint on a ladder, it does get extremely labor intensive when a mural starts high off the ground. In the image below, Victor used brush for some small detail elements by spray painting into a cup and thinning the acrylic enamel paint. This way, we were able to match the colors without having to pick up matching latex paint separately. However, we would recommend using cheap brushes as this method is pretty harsh on the bristles.

Montana Cans Spray Paint in Cup for Brush - Denver

After long days of painting from sunrise to sunset, one of the benefits on painting on a brewery was that we got to enjoy some free beers! We loved meeting and chatting all of the locals and employees at the brewery. There was definitely a strong sense of community amongst the customers we met. One thing that really stood out here was the amount of dogs we met everyday! It reminded us of our first date back in New York at Lucky Dog which was another dog-friendly bar.

Denver Mural Street Art Detail - Rockies, Nuggets, Skiing

The Greetings from Denver mural was one of our smallest public art pieces to date. However, people don’t realize that it’s actually more difficult to paint on a small scale with spray paint. Even though there’s different spray nozzles that can control the width of lines, you can only go so thin. The mural painting process involves a lot of cutting back to get the super thin line work needed for smaller scale murals.

We invited a local Denver artist to collaborate with us on the second “E” in the mural. Jolt aka Guerilla Garden was a graffiti artist introduced to us by mutual friends. We always try to work with artists that come from a graffiti background when possible. Our goal is to show that they can do a lot more than just lettering and tags! As always, we give our artists creative freedom to express what Denver means to them. Jolt incorporated his iconic character as well as a local landmark/hang out that meant a lot to him growing up in the area.

In the end, we were more than honored to work with so many inspirational people to make the Greetings from Denver mural come to life. We learn so much from working with the community and hope that our artwork will serve as a sense of hometown pride. The artwork becoming a travel destination for others is just a bonus element. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Denver!

Denver Graffiti Art Detail - Union Station, Jolt, Broncos & Nuggets

“The Greetings from Denver mural has become a visual icon and symbol of Denver. The art is very instagramable and has become a tourist destination which also brings new patrons to our brewery. We too, love the artwork and have worked with Victor & Lisa to create custom beer glasses with their design. The mural is a perfect backdrop for our many outdoor events and festivals and has become part of the urban fabric that makes our brewery special.”

— Patrick Crawford / Co-Founder Denver Beer Co.