BTS: Friday Harbor Labs Mural
In November of 2024, I was invited to Friday Harbor Laboratories to install my first mural!!!
As an homage to the labs, the iconic science taking place there, as well as the critters and wildlife that make the San Juan Islands so iconic, check out the piece and the process that went into it (as well as my many lessons learned as a first-timer).
I’m super grateful to have installed this design with the help of my cousin, Chaelin Garcia, who stuck it out with me through it all! Wind, rain, and more!
Paint Materials
Crate/Bin/5 Gallon Bucket for storage of materials
5 Exterior Paints (quarts) - we used this
Green, Pink/Red, Blue, Purple, White
Stir sticks incl.
Solo Cups
Small-Med Art Brush Pack
Garbage bags
Paper Towels
Sealant against tagging (opt)
This sealant is what I’ve been recommended, but TEST TEST TEST on a small section of your drymural before applying it to the entire piece!!!
Installer Gear/Care
Kneepads
Coveralls/Get-Dirty Clothes/Shoes
Speaker (for music!)
Snacks/Water
Chapstick/Lotion
Storage container (Bin/Crate/Bucket) from above can be flipped to act as a stool for low-to-the-ground work
Doing it in the Dark:
Another unique element of this installation was that it would mostly happen at night.
During daylight hours, Chae and I were scrambling all over the labs to film/photograph promotional content. Since we couldn’t collect daily lab activity content in the dark/after classtimes, we opted to prioritize daylight hours to footage collection, then dark hours for the mural.
With this said, below are a few tools that were extremely helpful to us during the nighttime installation for the mural, in a particularly cold/temperate place! Note that nighttime installation in warmer climates might look different.
NIGHTTIME Installer Gear
Headlamps
Small (Battery-operated/rechargeable) Worklights with stands/handles (like this)
EXTRA LAYERS!!!
Rain Shell/Pants are great at breaking wind
Hats/Beanies/Headbands to cover ears and forehead
Chapstick/Lotion is a MUST at this point
Windchill can crack dry lips and skin, which you might not notice in the moment due to the cold.
Overall, the mural took about 17 hours to make!!! Majority of this time (about 15 hours) was done in the dark. This install taught me A LOT about being realistic with materials - be realistic with the things that are just easier to dispose of in a resource-limited space.
Behind the Design
Guess what!? The design for this mural was basically planned on-site. I came in with a vague idea of style and overall vibe just based on previous illustration work I had produced from the labs, but actually sketched everything out on-site, with the help of some technology and hand-eye coordination for design transfer over to the wall.
Click on each of the images below to read more about the process.
The design was inspired by a combination of previous designs I made previously. The style and elements are things that the labs particularly enjoyed and eventually adopted for other materials moving forward. Check out some of the original art that inspired the overall design for the FHL mural!
First Inspiration
In 2023, I made my Aleutian Islands design featuring the iconic wildlife of the region. Most of the animals/seaweeds featured are also shared with what’s here in the PNW!
With this in mind, and with the fact that the Aleutians design was not claimed/licensed to anybody at the time, I ended up using some of these animals/elements in one of my very first promotional material projects I made for FHL - a Brochure!!!
First Promo Material Design - SACNAS Brochure
Combines with Aleutians elements, as well as a few seaweeds/kelps from a personal project called “Sammy’s Seaweeds” (Also below)
Sammy’s Seaweeds
Featuring some of my favorites from my Marine Botany course at FHL.
You can see some elements of this design in the brochure above, as well as the following promotional materials!
Autumn promotion for courses in 2025!
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities to create for the place that meant SO much to me back in the spring of 2024. FHL was an incredible marine science heaven, and I cannot wait to see what else we get up to into the future!
