Mural Painting with Artist Brian Zager | Tactics Bend

Bend shop employee and incredibly talented artist, Brian Zager (@bkzgrfx) turned an unfortunate event into a rad opportunity with a new masterpiece on a wall that was installed after smoke damage from a nearby fire forced us to close off a section of the Bend shop.

Check out the Q&A to learn what it took to complete it and more. All hail Cardiel!

So Brian, you've been working in this shop for a few years now, did you ever think you'd get to paint an entire wall?

Nope! There was never really a wall to paint. Fortunately/unfortunately, our building was having some roof work done and it forced the need for a temporary wall to be put up in the shop.

How long did it take you to complete it?

The whole thing took about 15 hours not including the planning stages. 3 separate sessions.

This was your first mural, right? How was the overall experience of painting such a massive canvas?

Yup, it was awesome. Really cool to be able to see my drawing blown up to pretty much life-size. The space wasn’t that big so it really did just feel like a large canvas. First time using a ladder to paint which presents its own challenges of what supplies can you actually have up there with you so don’t have to keep going up and down.

What inspired the piece?

We wanted something skate-inspired but I really wanted a subject that encompassed both the skate AND snow side of things for Tactics. For that, really only one person comes to mind…John (F@#&^ing) Cardiel. The image itself is actually based on a 1993 photo of Cardiel by Bud Fawcett from this book called ‘Snow Beach’. Have you seen it? Epic snowboard history in there.

What kind of supplies did you use? Did they work as planned?

The whole thing is painted with water-based acrylic indoor paint. Everything pretty much worked out, but because I had to buy all the paint online, the green I picked was pretty shocking in real life. Took a little mixing to get it just right.

Did you learn anything that might change how you'll approach the next mural?

The biggest challenge was just figuring out how much paint I actually needed. I took some consulting with my very talented mural/sign painter friends (@vividesign_co) to get an idea of how much paint I should actually be getting. Also, avoid painting particle board as much as you’d avoid getting Covid.

Where can people find more of your work?

www.bkzgrfx.com and @bkzgrfx on Instagram.