Local Painter Adds A Little Color to Downtown

Many things in life often get better with time, that saying holds true for Bluffton’s second community mural that Oscar Velasquez has been working on this summer. Each day the mural, which is a period piece of Bluffton from the 1950’s, gets more full of detail. In the final stages, Velasquez is painting on the last few people and pets that are lucky enough to be included in the scene.

Velasquez started the project on April 1 this spring and he has steadily been completing the picture since then. He usually comes out to his work site around 9 a.m. and often wraps up for the day by 4 p.m. He said there have not been any problems thus far, just that the detail in the painting is very time consuming and that is why four and a half months have passed and there is still a little time left to go until the mural is finished.

“I’m figuring, hopefully, it will be done in the middle of September, but that could change too,” Velasquez said. “The question I get asked the most is if it’s done yet, I had people asking me that three weeks after I started.”

Velasquez said he often has people come up to him throughout the day to see how he is doing and to check out the work he has done so far. 

“A lot of people stop by. Usually visitors, vacationers and families will walk by and they’ll stop to see what I’m doing. A lot of the kids that stop really like the train and the dogs in the painting,” Velasquez said.

A unique aspect of this mural is that residents of the community had the opportunity to include their self-portraits, business, family members and even pets in the painting by submitting a photo to Velasquez for a fee. On August 19, Velasquez was in the process of enshrining a golden retriever named Jake (The Diamond Dog) into the mural. 

As the finishing touches were being added to Jake, the summer heat was steadily rising. This summer’s high temperatures may have deterred a lot of people from working on an intricate outside project such as this, but the weather really has not affected Velasquez too much.

“It’s been a hot summer, even in the first week of April it was pushing 90 degrees, but I don’t mind, I like the heat. The only thing that the heat affects is that it dries out the paint so, I have to paint a little faster then,” Velasquez said.

Since it has been a relatively dry summer, the rain has not halted Velasquez’s progress all that much.

“There have been a few days were I haven’t came out because of the rain, but usually I just wait it out until it stops and then go out and work for a little bit.”

It seems the windy weather is most troublesome for Velasquez because it has been known to blow over the shade umbrella he has set up on top of his ladder.

“I’ve gone through two umbrellas this summer because of the wind turning them upside down,” Velasquez said.

When the summer is over, and the mural is completed, Velasquez will take his talent indoors, as he has several jobs lined up for this winter. Two jobs specifically will be painting a lake and lighthouse scene in the home of the Heldman’s and a big floral scene inside another home.

Toward the last days he will be working on the town mural, on the side of Forever in Stitches, Velasquez is planning on having a dedication ceremony. The ceremony will include Velasquez playing a number of 50’s songs, to honor the 50’s scene depicted on the brick wall, on his guitar. Velasquez said he will notify the Bluffton News and the community of when exactly the dedication ceremony will take place.