Case Study: Bus Murals

Two years ago I was approached by local fat bike legend Bryon Vordemann to come up with an illustration and logo for his fledgling bike bag company, FBJ Creations. After a little back and forth we ended up with this:

Yeah, I know NICA kids, he’s not wearing a helmet.

We also came up with a simple treatment for the leather patches that go on all of his bags. Since then FBJ has tapped me a few times to burn designs into leather for custom bags. I’ve really enjoyed working with Bryon, and the whole family is awesome. Their daughter April has probably logged more miles in her Burley trailer than I’ve ridden in the last five years.

So when FBJ bought a school bus, and decided they wanted a mural down both sides of it, I was excited to help. Lucky 13 is a retired school bus that’s been stripped down, painted John Deere green, and built out to house the family, and their mobile sewing studio so that they can crank out bags and accessories on the road.

Bryon gave me a few simple prompts. They wanted one side to represent their life in the Tetons, with a simple mountain range, their fat bikes, a Burley trailer, and a camp site. The other side is mountains meet desert. I took those ideas and ran with them, coming up with a few mockups quickly.

I made these mockups before I ever saw the bus in person

Just throwing colors and shapes at the bus to see what would work

I came up with the sewing machine spitting out trail in the desert, and Bryon was stoked.

When it comes to pricing, murals are really tricky. Some artists charge by the square foot, others by the hour. Either way, it’s really, really expensive to get a huge painting. A lot of that just comes down to time. As the artist, I’m doing this for two reasons: I love doing it, and I need to make enough money to feed my fat dog who demands many treats. And I have a lot of side hustles going on, so I have to look at both how long this is going to take me, and what my artistic talent is worth, plus what the opportunity cost is. No matter how excited I am about a project, I have to remind myself to look at it through the lens of “I could be making $30 an hour working carpentry, how many hours am I going to miss out on by doing this?”

All that to say, painting murals is expensive. So I priced out how much it would cost to get a vinyl wrap on the bus, instead of a mural. I called a few companies, and their price made my ballpark mural price seem downright affordable. So I pitched FBJ on a unique concept. I’d design the mural, outline it, and make color selections, and he’d do the bulk of the work. Basically I’d put a huge paint by numbers image on the side of his bus, and he’d color it in, before I came back and cleaned it up and finished it off.

This model doesn’t work for everyone, or every project, but in this instance it was perfect. FBJ was able to save a ton of money by doing much of the brute labour themselves, and I got to do this project without working way too many hours for way too little pay. Again, this model only works with some designs and clients, but when it does work, I love it. It gives the client way more ownership of the project, and allows them to be part of it, and really become invested in the process. And it’s much more affordable than paying me to come out and stand in your lawn and paint your bus 8 hours a day for three weeks.

So I came over after a trail day and projected my line work onto the bus, and traced it with sharpie.

Just a cheap amazon projector and a big green bus

l left FBJ with a stack of color swatches, and a corresponding print out of the image, and let him get to work.

He sent me progress shots throughout.

Just mountains

Coming along.

The corrugation proved challenging to paint on, but he made it happen, and then I came by at the end for a few days of touchups and outlining. We finished up the first side of the bus, and the family hit the road.

A few months later, back home, FBJ was ready to paint the other side of the bus. We followed the same process, this time he knew what he was doing and was much more confident cranking out the bulk of the painting. I came over and did the sewing machine, and then did another day of touchup before we finished it up just in time for One Hour of 5th Street.

Not that I have a favorite side….

…but this is my favorite side.

FBJ donated some awesome prizes to the event, and it was really cool to see the racers sprinting past the finished product.

I love seeing this bus on the street, it’s really striking when it pulls up to a stoplight next to you. Next week I’ll be finishing it up, with a casino-style sky mural on the ceiling, before they finish out the build and get it road worthy. They’ll be traveling in the bus all next summer, attending bike events around the country. So if you see a massive green bus with some familiar art on the side, go say hello!