Wall Wrap for Historic Downtown Green Bay

WITH ABOUT TWO hours of installation work to go on an increasingly darkening and cooling spring day in Green Bay, WI, the team from Art City Wraps (Oshkosh, WI) was getting more and more hungry, having skipped lunch to get two installs completed, recalls Art City’s Joshua Marquardt, the shop’s co-owner with wife Carla Marquardt. “The belly was starting to rumble,” he says.

One of the jobs that helped to build the installers’ appetite had been commissioned by the Downtown Green Bay Inc. (DGBI) to create a historical mural on the side of a building downtown. “We were provided with a clear focus from the start: to focus on the historic building’s heritage and the man that helped put it together,” Marquardt says. DGBI and the local Neville Public Museum provided Art City with black-and-white digital images to form the basis of the art.

“I wanted to highlight the height of the building using the founder of the Bohemian Bread Co.,” he says. Scale and perspective were also considered while creating the collage. “In the process of laying these things out, I was also conscientious of putting hand work back into the visual through inking and coloring,” Marquardt says. “Placing the human essence back into the print was an important part of the piece, which is located in a historic neighborhood of downtown Green Bay, a place known for its community and host of characters that helped build the city.”

To accomplish this, he used the Adobe suite to arrange the images and then applied his Fine ​Art degree, using colored pencils and ink to add color to the artwork before bringing it back into Adobe and ONYX RipCenter to scale for printing.

Art City selected General Formulations GF 885AE RoughMark Cast vinyl, printed on their Epson SureColor S80600, then protected the mural with GF 844 AutoMark Clear Laminate applied via the shop’s Mimaki LA-160W heat-assisted, large-format laminator — “a beast!” as Marquardt refers to it.

Installers Marquardt and Kyle Schultz used Weldy heat guns and GForce RollePro application tools, performing the contour cutting with blades live on-site as the installation progressed to ensure the project’s stability. “Textured installs are always a bit more fun and challenging,” Marquardt says, though there’s a payoff. “It is a beautiful feeling to see the texture beneath the vinyl burnish to life!” he adds.

With so many types of adhesives, vinyls and laminates on the market, it’s important to understand their variations in order to have successful installations. “I learned this type of information from installer training, friendly distributors and companies like General Formulations that have taken the time to provide me with the information, test samples and even video call to have detailed conversations,” Marquardt advises. “By sharing my struggles, listening to suggestions and being open-minded to a variety of products, my prints and installations are more successful.”

The finished mural measures 34 x 20 ft. and was applied over six hours by Marquardt and Schultz. But did they beat the sunset — and satisfy their hunger?

“Thankfully, as we come to a finish an amazing taco truck rolls in to save us with delicious birria and carne asada tacos,” Marquardt happily recalls. “After a long perfect day, nothing beat those warm tortillas and an ice-cold Coke!” The two packed the truck up after stuffing their faces and rolled 45 minutes back to Oshkosh, “slightly cold, tired and in a taco food coma thinking, ‘Ahhhhhhh, tomorrow is Saturday. Maybe I can sleep in,’” he says.