Wells Car Exhibit
In 2023, I painted many fun murals in this facility which was built by Mike and Cheryl Wells for the display of their restored 50's era cars, and as a gathering place for family and select events. On the bottom left of the two story structure is a room painted to look like a 50's era Chevy showroom.
On the bottom right are my paintings of the interior of a 50's era Standard Oil Station.
The space in front of the two story structure depicts a version of downtown Le Mars, IA, with reproductions of some of its significant buildings. I painted the clouds on the walls and the very realistic interiors of five of the buildings.
This is the Chevy showroom mural. It can only be viewed through these large windows. I painted the three walls inside this room to create the illusion that the room is larger than it actually is. The people, objects, and vehicles that you can see in this photo are all painted on the walls. The circle on the floor is a rotisserie for a real car.
Here is the showroom with the real car on the rotisserie. It looks super cool when the car is spinning!
This is the left side wall. The vehicles, people and objects that I painted on both side walls needed to be elongated so that they would appear in the proper perspective when viewed through the windows.
This is the right side wall. The type of distortion that I used to make the side wall images work from the window viewing spot is the same method used by artists that create similar illusions on sidewalks.
This is the back wall. I worked very hard and positioned the lights to hide the real corners as much as I could so that my painted corners would appear to be the real ones.
This is the Standard Oil station mural. I painted the elaborate 50's era gas station interiors.
I painted an actual 50's Standard Oil service bay. The car that I painted is from Mike Wells' collection.
My door and window paintings depict the area where the customer would pay for services and purchase automotive products. My painted door is on a real door leading to a real bathroom.
I created my own can labels based on real ones from the 50's. I really enjoyed painting the classic gumball machine!
This is the first image of the "downtown Le Mars" portion of the exhibit. I painted the elaborate window interiors.
I painted the current interior of the Wells Visitor Center with 50's era people inside. Most of these interior murals were done the same way.
I painted the door interior, including the blue "Habitue" sign, and the two window interiors, including the neon "Open" sign.
All of the movie posters, (real and painted), as well as the people, are from the 50's. The interior space is current day.
The door in this photo is real and functions as an entrance into the exhibit space. To avoid anyone being hit by the door when it opens, we put a see through printed vinyl on the large door window. Therefore, I had to paint my windows on the right and left of the door to match the print. It was quite tricky, but I'm very pleased with how it came out. (Notice how the floor tile and the concession counter line up with the print.)
The current interior of a well established Le Mars clothing store with 50's people and mannequins.
I had to create the interior space on this painting because the current building interior is not the same as it used to be. This building once contained an actual Firestone Tire store. Everything that I painted here is legitimately from the 50's...
50's TV, signage, percolator, magazine...everything! I remember a lot of this stuff!
In my research I found out about Firestone stores. The employees dressed just like my guy behind the counter.
This was an extensive and very cool project! Thanks, Mike and Cheryl!