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Out in Left Field
Painting a brewery logo on a concrete silo

Finished project: the logo on the silo overlooking the ball field.

If you follow Nick Slavik long enough – and who doesn’t? — you know that he’s got a strong connection to his hometown. He really gets excited when he gets a chance to paint a favorite old house or a landmark in or around New Prague and put his stamp on some fond memories. In this case, he had a once-ina lifetime opportunity to paint a landmark for the Giesenbrau Bier Company, the hometown brewery. “They contacted us to paint a custom mural on their family’s farm — on a silo overlooking a baseball field!” said Slavik. “The Giesen family has owned this farm for generations and donated the land to create a country ball field long ago. The family also operates an amazing local brewery and recently rebranded. In honor of that rebranding,

The crew was challenged to apply a coating to an usually shaped and difficult surface, at height

The team took an image from a beer can and then transferred it, in a much larger scale, to the silo

If you follow Nick Slavik long enough – and who doesn’t — you know that he’s got a strong connection to his hometown. He really gets excited when he gets a chance to paint favorite old house or landmark in or around New Prague and put his stamp on some fond memories. In this case, he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to paint a landmark for the Giesenbrau Bier Company, the hometown brewery. “They contacted us to paint a custom mural on their family’s farm — on a silo overlooking a baseball field!” said Slavik. “The Giesen family has owned this farm for generations and donated the land to create a country ballfield long ago. The family also operates an amazing local brewery and recently rebranded. In honor of that rebranding

we were given the challenge to recreate their new logo on the silo.”

The goal of the project was to take an image from the side of a beer can and interpret it onto the silo, which was 35 feet in the air and stared back at the crew with a curved, bare concrete surface. It was surely not the most welcoming substrate for decorative art, but the Slavik team had a plan to paint it into compliance. The mural had to be seen — and be legible — from all the way out in left field. Beer and baseball, and it wouldn’t be the first time, had to work together. “The size, scale, scope, colors and orientation were critical, as well as placing it so that the ballfield lights would accentuate it,” said Slavik. “There were 12 colors, and we had to create a custom paper stencil in our shop after measuring the silo. We took the stencil in the lift, applied it to the silo, then chalked the general composition. We then used many different sized brushes to systematically apply the 12 colors.”

Slavik and crew had colors, products, and applicators well organized

There was a deadline, in this case the “big game” was coming up quickly, so the Slavik crew pulled an all-nighter to get it ready. It was a ballfield after all, so lighting was on hand; the Giesen family turned on the lights to illuminate the project through the night. “It was one of the greatest craft experiences of my life,” said Slavik. “We finished on a warm summer morning as the sun rose and lit up the new mural!”

Slavik and crew hit a home run with this TOP JOB winner, and we’ll drink to that! APC