Making the Portland Music Mural: A Tribute to 50 Years of Musical History

Nestled on the bustling corner of SW 11th and Morrison in Portland, Oregon, a vibrant 50-foot mural celebrates the city’s rich musical legacy. This striking piece of art brings to life five decades of Portland's music history, paying homage to the legendary artists who shaped the city's unique sound. Here's the story of how the Portland Music Mural came to be.

From Concept to Creation: The Vision Behind the Mural

The mural began as a simple idea: a list of names honoring Portland’s iconic musicians. But why stop there? Instead of just names, we envisioned a bold, colorful tribute—an artistic "greatest hits" album celebrating the city's musical DNA.

The MURAL SITE:: SW 11th and Yamhill in Portland, Oregion

Collaborating closely with our client, we selected 25 influential artists to spotlight in the design. This presented a creative challenge: How do you honor individual legacies while creating a unified, visually cohesive mural?

Finding the Perfect Style

Our first attempts at full-color representations of each artist felt overwhelming and chaotic. The breakthrough came when we turned to the crisp, dynamic aesthetics of street-style line art inspired by Keith Haring and the pop-art flair of Roy Lichtenstein.

By combining clean line drawings with a limited palette of bold, vibrant colors, we crafted a design that stood out from a distance while maintaining intricate details up close. Each artist was represented with their own unique hue, creating a harmonious yet distinct visual language.

Scaling the Design: The Doodle Grid Technique

Transferring an intricate design onto a 50-foot wall is no small feat. While projectors are often a go-to tool for muralists, they weren’t practical for this project due to the uneven surface of the wall, streetlight interference, and the sheer size of the mural.

Enter the Doodle Grid technique—a fun, innovative approach that’s gaining popularity among muralists.

How the Doodle Grid Works

1. Cover the Wall with Random Doodles: We filled the wall with playful shapes, squiggles, and symbols, creating a grid-like framework. This chaotic layer ironically drew curious questions from passersby who thought the doodles were the final mural!

2. Overlay the Design Digitally: Using a photo of the wall, we overlaid our mural design onto the doodle grid. The random patterns provided reference points, making it easy to map sections of the artwork accurately onto the wall.

3. Transfer with Precision: Using the grid, we sketched the design onto the wall, section by section. Colored pencils helped us differentiate the artists’ features and details during this phase.

Bringing the Mural to Life

The Doodle Grid proved invaluable throughout the process. Working inches away from the wall on such a massive scale, it helped us maintain precision and stay oriented in the design.

With the design mapped out, the painting process began. Layer by layer, the mural took shape. Each artist’s portrait was brought to life with meticulous attention to detail, and the bold colors transformed the wall into a celebration of Portland's musical heritage.

The Final Piece: A Tribute to Portland’s Musical Legacy

After weeks of hard work, the Portland Music Mural was complete. From the iconic "Louie Louie" to modern hits that resonate far beyond the city, the mural is a vibrant testament to the artists who shaped Portland’s musical identity.

More than just a work of art, the mural is a living piece of history—a reminder of the city’s creative spirit and the sounds that define it.

Unveiling Day! Sept 1st 2023

Visit the Mural and Get Inspired

If you’re in Portland, make your way to SW 11th and Morrison to experience the Portland Music Mural up close. It’s a perfect photo op, a celebration of local history, and a chance to connect with the city’s vibrant cultural roots.

What do you think of the Portland Music Mural? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And don’t forget to check out more of our projects for behind-the-scenes looks at how we bring art to life.

Keep creating and celebrating the power of art!

WONDERLOVE: Crafting an Epic Multi-Wall Mural Design

Nestled in the heart of Portland’s inner eastside industrial district, Wonderlove is more than just a food-cart and bar hub; it’s a vibrant space that fuses art, entertainment, and community. This summer, Wonderlove’s exterior was transformed into an urban gallery, with massive, eye-catching murals adorning its walls. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how we brought these murals to life, from the first sketches to the final brushstroke.

The Vision: Love Meets Wonder

The journey began with a simple question: How do you visually capture Wonderlove’s ethos—“The love of wonder is the wonder of love?

To answer this, we kicked off the process with an ideation phase. Inspired by our conversations with the client, we created initial sketches that explored story-driven concepts, each design reflecting a unique narrative of love, curiosity, and connection. To begin, we photographed each wall at the site and then used those images to create line art templates of the site to begin concepting out the images for each wall.

Since the space had the potential for seven different murals that would be experienced as a sequence, we proposed creating a loose narrative, with each wall progressing the story, like a huge comic or illustrated storybook.

We created five different story driven concepts.

Evolving the Concept

While the storytelling concepts resonated with the client, they had a fresh idea: to pivot toward an eclectic, gallery-style design. The goal was to make each wall stand out as its own statement piece while maintaining a harmonious overall flow.

We revisited our sketches, selecting standout elements from the original designs and reimagining them to create a visually dynamic experience. Each wall would tell its own story but remain part of a greater whole.

Refining the Designs

With the concepts in place, we moved to the next step: refining the designs and choosing a cohesive color palette.

We presented full-color compositions to the client, ensuring that every mural was vibrant and engaging. A “fractal sky” motif was introduced to tie the murals together, providing continuity while allowing each piece to shine on its own.

This phase was critical in balancing individuality and unity, ensuring the space felt like an urban gallery without overwhelming visitors with too much visual chaos.

Bringing the Murals to Life

With designs finalized, it was time to get to work on the walls. We were also working against the clock side by side with the Wonderlove construction crew who were all working to get the venue open for summer.

Preparation and Supersizing the Designs

Before painting could begin, all the walls were prepped with a white primer. We used a grid technique to accurately transfer the designs onto the massive surfaces. This approach dates back to the Renaissance, and was used by the great masters to scale up their works of art. It’s a tried-and-true technique that’s still popular today.

Paint and Color Palette 

Each color was coded to help organize the palette. Moonlight Melody became E14.

At this scale we decided not to custom mix the colors in the event that repairs or updates might be needed in the future. We opted to work with premixed latex colors available as exterior house paint.

Hand-Painting the Details

Over weeks of careful work, the murals began to take shape. Layer by layer, vibrant colors and intricate details brought the designs to life. The “fractal sky” served as a unifying background, while bold imagery on each wall added its own unique personality to the space.

Detail of the Fractal Sky motif.

Planning for Unexpected Weather

To ensure we could keep moving forward even on rainy days, part of the mural was envisioned as a large framed hanging painting. This piece of the project we decided to create indoors and then install later. This enabled us to jump back and forth between the exterior painting and interior painting, and avoid any downtime due to weather or other interruptions. 

One of four 5’x5’ panels created indoors.

The twenty foot long painting consists of four 5x5’ birch panels. The panels will be mounted side by side on the exterior “fractal wall” and surrounded by a custom frame. This final piece of the mural will be installed in the spring of 2025.

The Urban Gallery Realized

The urban art gallery taking shape at Wonderlove.

The result? Wonderlove is now an open-air urban gallery, where every wall is a work of art waiting to be discovered. From bold, abstract forms to intricate storytelling elements, each mural offers a different perspective, yet together, they create a cohesive and inspiring environment for visitors.

Visit Wonderlove

Whether you’re stopping by for delicious food, craft cocktails, or live entertainment, Wonderlove offers more than just a meal—it’s an experience. As you explore the space, let the murals guide you through a journey of love, wonder, and creativity.

If you’re in Portland, don’t miss the chance to see these murals up close. Come for the food and drinks, stay for the art, and leave with a heart full of inspiration.

Photo: @johnkeehn | Model: @lenamaekeehn | Location: @wonderlove_pdx

The love of wonder is the wonder of love.

See you at Wonderlove!