architectural mural

Before/after

Great project. I stumbled across the before pic today and had to post. How's this for the before/after of Tao's mural at J's? Much more suited to their brand than a plain concrete wall. It's all in the details. Even the handicapped parking sign is hand-painted. The mural wraps around the front and on to their outdoor patio! Painted by Tao with a brush the size of my pinky. We need a professional photograph of this mural. My snapshot doesn't do it justice.

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(Above) Tao LaBossiere, Jim of J's, and Amy LaBossiere stand in front of J's Crabshack after committing to their new exterior mural.

(Below) partial view of completed mural

Mural complete at J's Crab Shack

We are excited to announce that Art of Tao has completed another beautiful exterior trompe l'oeil mural. If you've never been to J's Crabshack, it's on Park Street in Hartford.  this photo is just a crappy iPhone shot. But until we get a professional photo, you get the idea. This mural took just under a year from start to finish. Mostly because we started it last fall and had to stop over the winter. The owners were not in a rush for it to be completed, so we worked on it alongside other projects. Trompe l'oiel is one of Tao's favorite ways to paint murals. He loves transforming architecture with a paintbrush the size of my pinky. Now, please stop reading this, go get some seafood and check out this mural in person. Art in real life is always better. 

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Mural at J's http://www.jscrabshack.com/

The Tap Room: making of a trompe l'oeil mural

Creating a mural that transforms architecture is a fabulous creative process. First, a concept needs to be born. For this mural at Still Hill Brewery, we were inspired by the logo created by Gary Holmes of Gariphic. Originally, the brewery owners contacted us to paint that mural on the wall. When Tao saw the future tap room space, he instantly imagined the logo in the form of a rusty old sign, inside of an old barn known as Still Hill. The story and visual unfolded in his mind and he created the visual to share with the brewery owners. They too fell in love with it, and hired us to create the mural. Along the way, Tao took many progressive images during the creation of this large-scale, indoor mural at Still Hill Brewery. He would stop painting, take a picture, paint some more, set up some automatic shots from his phone, and paint some more. We also used some other images available to us as content. 

Our gratitude to Matt Seremet that constructed this video and animated various elements from the mural artwork. Let us know what you think. It's pretty wild!