Our mission working with the Iconic Jefferson Airplane, Jampol Artist Management and Sony Music was to create an iconic mural based off The Airplane's "Volunteers" album. For the album's 50th anniversary we went back to the band's roots in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District to paint a mural that would celebrate the revolutionary albums cover artwork. Painted on one of our rentable wall locations in the San Francisco area artist Maxfield Bala spent four days painting this 13'0" H X 36'0" W mural to spec. With thousands bound to see this mural a day, we couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate the album's release and introduce new listers to Jefferson Airplane.

We're here to highlight two of our latest mural painting artist Maxfield Bala and his team have painted in the San Francisco, Bay Area. These include a live painting for Twilio in the heart of San Francisco and a rural mural painted in Sonoma County. TWILIO Mural Activation Our mission working with Twilio was to create a mural painting for the 2025 Signal Conference Event at the Marriot Marquis in San Francisco, California. Our goal was to develop a mural that would pay homage to the Twilio's history and legacy as a company. We accomplished this goal through an iconic postcard style mural painting that featured a variety of iconography pertinent to Twilio. Hand painting the mural to 85% completion before transporting the mural to the Signal Event where muralist Maxfield Bala live painted and completed the mural as event patrons watched and enjoyed the process. The mural was then taken down and moved to the Twilio office's in San Fransisco where it was installed and will reside for many years to come! Live painting Mural activation for Signal 2025 in San Francisco. Live Painting by Maxfield Bala for the Signal Conference in San Francisco. The completed postcard style mural for Twilio. DUNHAM Mural Our mission working with Dunham School was to create a mural that would pay homage to the agricultural roots of Western Sonoma Country region. The students from the school largely come from backgrounds in the agricultural field. The mural painting itself pulled inspiration from farm animals within the area. Moving from right to left the mural features a duck, horse, sheep, and cow, among native flowers to the area being mustard and poppy flowers. Green rolling hills filled with oak trees line the murals background. The mural faces the school's parking lot, turns around the area and greets students, staff, and guardians each school day.   Completed Mural for Dunham School in rural Petaluma Mural features local farm animals. Completed Mural for Dunham School in rural Petaluma by Maxfield Bala.

We've complied the top five amazing office mural paintings we've created for our clients in the San Francisco, Bay Area. From tech offices in the heart of Silicon Valley, to high rise skyscrapers, and suburban headquarters we've painted murals in offices throughout the bay area that cater to a variety of unique clients seeking various design styles. These interior wall paintings are developed in close collaboration with our clients and are painted to spec, often around our clients normal work hours to avoid workplace interruption. We believe that mural paintings in offices create an environment that facilitates team building, enhanced productivity and promotes a unified workplace culture. All while enhancing brand recognition, impressing clients, and attracting talent into your office workplace. Here are the top five office murals we've painted for our clients: Kaiser Permanente Pediatric Office Mural Painting- Redwood City, Ca Kaiser Permanente Hospital Office Mural- Redwood City, Ca Our mission working with Kaiser Permanente and Art advisors was to create a digital mural painting for the Redwood City pediatric department office. Our clients requested a wall mural painting with iconic world sites completed with relevant plants, animals, and fruitful landscapes. Moving from left to right the mural includes St. Basels Church in Russia, the Golden Gate Bridge, Rice Terraces in the Philippines, Mt. Fuji in Japan, the Acropolis in Greece, Victoria Falls in Africa, Taj Mahal in India, Pola Island in Samoa, El Castillo Pyramid in Mexico, The Great Wall of China, and Big Ben in England. All among animals like the Panda, abstract forms, plants, and insects like the monarch butterfly.  The idea was to create an immersive scene in the pediatric waiting room that children and adults could interact with and enjoy. An immersive environment that allows viewers to discover hidden gems and learn about some of the world's wonders. This mural was painted digitally and applied to the wall thanks to the great people at the Blow-Up lab in San Francisco. The mural stands at just over eight feet tall and spans over thirty feet wide with special accommodations for outlets, light and a television. Strava Headquarters Office Mural Paintings- San Francisco, Ca Strava HQ Mural, San Francisco, Ca Strava HQ Mural, San Francisco, Ca Strava HQ Mural, San Francisco, Ca Our mission collaborating with the amazing Jennet Liaw and Strava was to paint office murals for Strava HQ in San Francisco, Ca. Jennet Liaw is an "independent designer slash illustrator living and working in NYC and the internet, respectively." Using artist Jennet Liaw's brilliant design, we painted her illustration to exact specifications requested by the Strava team. The mural spanning 35' wide and 12' tall features a variety of unique icons, symbols, and illustrations in Jennet's unique artistic style. The two murals feature black, White and Strava's signature Orange to read "Connect athletes to what motivates them" a slogan that runs true throughout the Stava San Franciso office employees. Our team painted the interior murals during off-hours to avoid interrupting the workplace environment.  Our next mission mission working with Strava was to implement a more permanent solution towards their vinyl floor graphics found in their San Francisco , Headquarters location. Initially, the Strava office featured a series of vinyl floor graphics that were subject to peeling, ripping and excessive wear. In a day's time, we converted the vinyl graphics into hand-painted directional and aesthetic floor graphics throughout the San Francisco office thus implementing a more permanent solution. We used a variety of specialty industrial floor paints and polyurethane clear coats to achieve a highly durable sign painting meant to withstand heavy use from Strava employees. Various graphics and sign paintings included directional wording, bike storage, shower sign, and arrows. The largest graphics of spanned over 20' x 20' and featured a topographic look for the company's communal space.  Tesla Motors Engineering Headquarters Office Mural Paintings- Palo Alto, Ca Tesla Motors Office Mural- Palo Alto, Ca Our Mission working with Tesla was to create a large scale mural painting for their new Palo Alto offices in the heart of Silicon Valley. We replicated artwork developed by the Tesla Design team. The mural titled the “Cyber Bear” pays homage to the Tesla Cybertruck and the California State flag which features a large roaring Grizzly Bear. The mural features this grizzly bear atop earth toned geometric shapes while walking up the office staircase. A green grassy scene featuring the same geometric shapes sits on the frontal staircase area while Tesla Cyber Trucks- made to look more like fish, fly outside of the bears mouth. The mural painting spans over 20’ tall by 20’ wide in its total capacity and was painted on a quick turnaround time to meet the needs of client. United Stated Geological Service Office Mural Paintings- Mountain View, Ca USGS Office Mural- Mountain View, Ca USGS Office Mural- Mountain View, Ca Our mission with USGS was to create a mural painting for their new laboratory at the NASA Moffet Field facility in Mountain View, California. The brand new building featured a large entry area the beckoned a mural worthy of the stunning new facility that consolidated the USGS labs. The mural spans across two stories and amongst a sprawling staircase to create a mural measuring 55'0"W  X 25'0"H. The mural painting itself features a topographic map of the majestic Yosemite Valley complete with river designations and a map directory. The map itself was translated to specification per the requests of the USGS team.  Rendr Offices Mural Painting- San Francisco, CA Rendr Office Mural- San Francisco, CA Our mission with Render Cloud Technologies in San Francisco, California was to create a mural painting that reflected the companies branding, mission and culture through a series of abstract forms. These abstract forms resembling the brand icon work together to form movement and depth through a series of transparent overlays and the painting transferred into the secondary wall.  Bala Creative has been painting murals for the past ten years in the San Francisco, Bay Area and has worked with some of the world's largest brands to ensure stunning murals are painted at their office locations. We are fully licensed mural painters with a key artistic eye in design and practice at large scale mural painting and intricate sign paintings. Interested in seeing more of our office mural paintings for companies like Rivian , Betterhelp, dropbox, and 2k Games? Click the photos below to learn more. Rivian Office Mural Rivian Office Mural- San Jose, CA Betterhelp Offices Mural Betterhelp Office Mural- Mountain View, Ca Dropbox Mural Dropbox Mural- San Francisco, Ca

The simple answer is yes , you need a contractor's license in California at the present time. According to the California State Licensing Board " Contractors who engage in extensive painting and decorating work on various structures and surfaces, and whose project costs surpass $500, are required to hold a C-33 license." As mural painters we are in theory partaking in extensive painting and decorating and are subject to procuring a license. We are writing this blog post as of March 2025, with rules and regulations subject to change at any time. We are not lawyers and are in no way offering any sort of legal advice, but are simply sharing our opinion and experience as a mural painting company based out of the San Francisco Bay Area who have procured their own C-33 License in California. We cannot verify the accuracy of this article but have done our best to provide you with our knowledge working to obtain our license as mural painters. Mural painter Maxfield Bala atop a scissor lift in Santa Clara, Ca. Mural Painting and Contractors Licenses When beginning their mural painting careers in California, Muralist Maxfield Bala and Bala Creative painted murals without a contractor license as the vast majority of mural artists operate. The thought being that "we are artists, and not painting contractors." However, insurance companies, city governments, and larger corporate clients requirements quickly made it evident that mural painting without a contractor's license in the state of California could be against the law and subject our team to fines, penalties, and even lawsuits based on the organization.  We ultimately were required to obtain a license in order to legally paint murals, procure basic insurance and hire employees under the current laws and quickly took the steps to become a C-33 painting contractor in California. A contractors license as a muralist can be a challenge to procure as you will need to meet the following requirements in California: Age :  Be at least 18 years old.  Social Security Number of ITIN You need four years of experience as a journeyman, foreman, supervisor, or licensed painting contractor within the last ten years.  Completion of trade-specific and law & business exams necessary for licensure. CSLB verification of identity and criminal history for all contractors. Payment of licensing fees to CSLB. Procurement of all necessary insurance including General Liability and Workman's Compensation insurance and $25,000 Contractor License bond.  Renewal of your contractor's license every two years while maintaining good practices  Mural painters should have a fundamental understanding of the walls they are painting and some training may be necessary in order to properly prep, paint and seal murals safely. The education and training these licensing requirements provide offer a mural painter a heightened level of quality, safety, and efficiency for their artwork from start to finish. Helping to save you money, away from legal woes, and giving you a better understanding of your business.  For example artists going from a small canvas to a large wall mural without a contractor license may have no training in painting large surfaces and not fully understand the most effective methods to prepare and prime certain surfaces like masonry or metal surfaces. These surfaces when, prepped incorrectly and this can result in paint failing prematurely and in some cases can cause damage to the building's structure. Leaving the metal to corrode, the wood to rot, or the stucco to fail. Weeks of mural painting can be destroyed because the primer did not hold properly to the surface. With the proper training and certifications one can learn the proper prepping and painting methods to avoid disaster. Its the knowledge that comes with a license that can help avoid these mishaps. The safety a license and qualified experience brings you and your team might be the most important aspect to a license. A lack of experience operating lifts or working on elevated surfaces can result in extreme fall hazards not only to the mural artist but those passing by. Operating against CalOsha safety standards regardless of your knowledge of these rules can leave you subject to extreme fines. Again, With the proper training and certifications one can learn the proper safety methods to avoid potentially deadly mishaps and legal woes. It took us countless hours to procure our C-33 painting and decorating license as mural painters in California but at the end of the day it helped provide us with a better understanding of how to paint murals, run our business, and meet a wide swath of legal requirements and regulations applied by insurance companies, and the state of California. This has helped open us up to paint bigger projects that become more efficiently and effectively for our clients. Scissor lift experience. Maxfield Bala Creative is a fully licensed C-33 Painting and Decorating Contractor operating out of the San Francisco Bay area as a mural painting company. License number CSLB C-33 #1120177. Please contact us if you're looking for a mural painting company with an active contractors license to paint your next mural project in California.

Our mission working with Visit Oxnard was to paint a large-scale mural for the exterior of the Oxnard Transit Center. The Oxnard Transit Center is within Downtown Oxnard, California and is the hub to Amtrak Trains and local bus routes offering transportation to areas across the state of California and throughout the United States. This hub offers the perfect opportunity to leave a lasting mark to those not only within the community but those passing by and visiting the Oxnard area as well. The mural features an iconic vintage postcard aesthetic with a stylistic twist by our lead muralist Maxfield Bala. The mural spans 40 feet wide and 12 feet tall and was painted using a variety of high quality paints over a multi surface brick wall. We worked with Visit Oxnard to feature iconography most pertinent to the Oxnard area. This iconography landed us with an oceanic base with a parasailed off the coast, waves breaking onto the shore and a beach carrying up to the surrounding mountain range. A sea lion commonly found off Hollywood Beach looks towards the Bold Oxnard Lettering. The Letter O features the Oxnard Pagoda. The X features two luscious strawberries. The N features a Chevy Impala parked outside one of Oxnard's beaches. The A features a sailboat exiting Seabridge. The N features a Channel Island Fox endemic to the Channel Island National Park just off the Oxnard coastline. The D includes a pair of boxing gloves paying homage to Oxnard's world champion boxing legacy. To protect the mural we've applied a high quality UV resistant clear coat to keep the mural looking like new for decades to come. We're excited to see the virility of this mural for those visiting Oxnard and looking to share their time in the area! Check out the time lapse of this mural come to life below: Check out our other postcard style murals here: Greetings From San Francisco: https://www.maxfieldbala.com/greetingsfromsanfrancisco Greetings From Eastvale: https://www.maxfieldbala.com/greetingsfromeastvale Welcome to Petaluma: https://www.maxfieldbala.com/welcometopetaluma

Large scale mural paintings are no easy feat to achieve. Bala Creative founder Maxfield Bala compares the jump from standard mural painting to large scale mural painting like the jump from Canvas painting to mural painting. The process of going really big with a mural painting requires a new set of techniques, equipment, and way of thinking when painting murals. Small brush strokes and tiny spray caps are replaced with airless spray guns, 5" wide brushes, and super fat spray caps. leaning your head back to view the walls composition turns into a short walk in order to view the wall from a distance. Ladders and step stools are replaced by articulating boom lifts, leveraging you over 50' high. Small details on a mural that might be one foot in height, quickly become five feet in height. It's this combination of factors that make large scale mural painters a unique breed comparative to those painting smaller murals. When we began painting large scale murals it was a gradual process. smaller 8' x 8' walls became 10' x 20' walls that become 15' x 30' walls and ultimately walls over 30' x 100' walls. We slowly learned to go larger and larger with our murals inheriting technique after technique on the way. Building our skill sets to become proficient in safety, skill, and equipment catalog. Going from only using ladders to an articulating boom lift is quite the jump but going from a ladder to a small scissor lift is much easier. likewise, hoping from from blending with small brushes to a multicolor airless spray set up is a big jump. It can take years before your able to master these skills at a high level. Our founder Maxfield Bala painted homes for years while emerging as a young artist in the San Francisco Bay area and learned more production style techniques towards the preparation and painting of large scale surfaces that have transcended into our large scale mural paintings. When commencing a large scale mural painting its important to understand that garbage in is garbage out, A wall not properly prepped through power washing, sanding and cleanings paired with a high quality primer can destroy a mural painting before its even finished. However a wall properly prepped can allow the large scale mural painting to last for decades. The primer and/ or block filler paint will serve as the glue that helps bind your paint to the wall and help create a smoother surface for enhanced blending. Large scale pieces can require additional attention during the development process due to their scale and visibility. Theres no doubt that even small murals can invoke wonder, curiosity and even some backlash. Large scale works amplify those feelings and can drastically alter the entire feel of a neighborhood due to their encompassing size. We always recommend painting murals that are from the heart and take into account the environment and community. Input on these pieces are often welcomed and will ultimately create a piece thats celebrated both by the artist and those members who see it every day. Take some extra time to understand that the images in the mock up you create might be stories tall and carry a whole new meaning to some because of their size. Painting large scale murals require the same materials as large scale murals. Its more about the equipment used to apply said materials. Use the same brushes, spray tips, and ladders your using on a small mural and you will find yourself taking ten times longer to paint the mural with less than satisfactory results. Blends that span 8' in length just simply don't work with small scale equipment. Just like hauling paint up and down an extension ladder just doesn't work compared to the large scale painting platform of a scissor lift. Successful mural painters understand efficiency in safety, techniques, and application in regards to equipment. You can still use your favorite house paints, spray cans, and clear coats, just make sure your equipment allows you to go large scale. Perspective changes when painting a large scale mural. The idea of painting remains the same but expect to use more of your body when painting at this scale. The line work that requires only a flick of the wrist on a smaller scale piece become a leg squat paired with full arm extension. Take the time to walk back on your piece and view the mural from multiple angles as you progress on a piece of this scale. Ensure you apply a roadmap, or doodle grid so you can understand your location on the wall. Knowing where to apply color becomes trickier when visual sketch markers are out of site. If the piece looks almost messy from close up thats ok. Your expanding on details to a unique scale that when viewed from far away or almost unseen or contribute to the realism. Finally understand your working up stories up in the air. Take the time to become lift certified, wear harnesses, and apply best practices to ensure you, your team, and those passerby's or kept safe from falling hazards. Going big means thinking bigger than normal from a safety perspective. Know that large scale murals take time to paint. At first doubling the scale, of your work will mean double the time to create the piece. However once the techniques and equipment are inherited, the large scale mural becomes only fractionally more time consuming than a smaller wall. Maxfield Bala Creative LLC has painted dozens of large scale mural painting in the United States. We're fully licensed contractors with the insurance and team often required by companies to paint at such a large outdoor walls. With over ten years of experience we specialize in custom murals developed by Maxfield Bala and our team and the recreation of to specification artwork designated by the client. Here are a few big murals we've painted: SAND CITY Mural in Sand City, Ca Our mission working with We. Create Artist Gathering and the city of Sand City was to develop and paint a large scale mural painting during the week long mural festival taking place from August 23- August 30th, 2021. We collaborated with Colorado based artist Pat Milbery and Monterey based artist Hannah Brimmer on this huge mural spanning just over 60 feet wide and 25 feet tall. The mural depicts a variety of local animals including the Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Ringtail Cat, Great Blue Heron, Allen's Hummingbird, Leatherback Turtle and the Monarch Butterfly among an assortment of plant life and an abstract landscape of the Monterey Bay. The scene is seemingly made visible through the building cracking bricks revealing the nature bursting through. Lead muralist Maxfield Bala painted the wildlife area's while Pat Milbery painted the landscape scenes. The mural was painted over the course of one week in the center of Sand City, California. LAGUNITAS MURAL Mural in Las Vegas. NV Our Mission was to create a gigantic commercial mural advertisement for the world renown Lagunitas Brewing Company in Las Vegas, Nevada. The wall itself was an aggregate rock wall leaving us with the task of conquering the tricky surface and turning it into a work of art. The mural features the Lagunitas text logo in the companies signature purple color. Each letter stands over 20' tall. To the right the companies "knock out" character punches a 25' tall Lagunitas IPA bottle through the wall as it cracks and crumbles away. The outdoor mural advertisement spans over 130' wide and 30' tall making for it one of the cities largest sign paintings to date. Completed in under five days to meet a tight deadline this mural painting is seen and photographed by thousands of highway and street side passerby's everyday. This mural is located Right next to the Shelby Carroll Car Museum and just off the Las Vegas Strip this exterior wall. Makes us thirty just thinking about it! SPARE THE AIR Mural in Emeryville, Ca Our mission working with the Bay Area Air Quality Management district, Spare the Air campaign, Allison and Partners and Bay Street Emeryville was to create a large scale mural painting to beautify the Bay Street Campus in collaboration with supporting the Spare the Air campaign.  The Air District’s goal is to keep the air for Bay Area residents safe, by encouraging alternative options to single car trips. In the city of Emeryville, we’d like to remind passersby that the Bay Area is an active, inclusive community, with so many accessible options for making your commute and transportation healthier for all (walk, bike, train, bus, ferry, or even a hybrid of bike+mass transit. Keeping this idea in mind we strategically developed a concept to fit a dynamic mural that would work for all parties involved. The proposed site featured a vast variety of surface levels, surface materials and obstructions like doors, vents, railings and lights. These factors called for a dynamic mural design with strategically placed images in order to remove image distortion and effectively promote the values of our artistic vision and the Spare the Air campaign. Through multiple design rounds with input from the Mayor of Emeryville we landed on a colorful design paying homage to the relationship of public transit's ability to create a cleaner environment friendly to the bay area's natural habitats and wildlife. This included the feature of active modes of transportation like bike riding, cycling and electric scooter riding along with more traditional modes like the bus or train. Moving from left to right the mural features a Monarch butterfly and bicycle rider. A rider enters an electric double decker bus as a Great Blue Heron flies by. A cyclist looks back onto reeds breaking way to a Pelican. The mayor of Emeryville's dog pokes in head out from the bottom of the scene while an electric scooter rider paces down the bay front pathway. A Plover bird native to the local wetlands spread its wings aside a California Golden Poppy flower and a large Spare the Air logo. A man takes his bike off the train to the right of this logo while bold colors layered upon one another help to create movement, and depth throughout the mural. The mural took three weeks to complete and spans 110' wide and over 13' tall and was clear coated with an anti graffiti coating to have it outlast the elements. The mural is a permanent installation in Emeryville, California and was painted by our lead muralist, Maxfield Bala in conjunction with our mural team. USGS MURAL Mural in Mountain View, Ca Our mission with USGS was to create a mural painting for their new labroatory at the NASA Moffet Field facility in Mountain View, California. The mural spans across two stories and amongst a sprawling staircase to measure at roughly 55'0"W  X 25'0"H. The mural painting itself features a topographic map of the magestic Yosemite Valley complete with river designations and a map directory. The map itself was translated to specification per the requests of the USGS team.  AGRIHOOD SANTA CLARA Mural in Santa Clara, Ca. The Largest of the mural paintings at the Agrihood housing development is a three story corrugated metal water tower. The curved water tower required a series of unique design and painting techniques in order to properly develop and transfer the mural design. The mural paintings design features a series of local wildlife including a great blue heron and Monarch Butterflies among Apricot blossoms and other local flowers. The murals required two months to paint and were treated with a series of protective UV and graffiti resistant clear coats to protect and preserve the murals for years to come.

Maxfield Bala is a mural painting artist from Sonoma County. With roots in the town of Petaluma, California Muralist Maxfield Bala and his team have been painting murals throughout wine country for the last ten years. Specilizing in large scale exterior murals Bala's aesthetic stems from a research-based explorative adventure into the region’s history, culture, and natural environment in relation to the site’s purpose. Discovering what once was, what will be, and how the artwork can enhance the viewers experience within the designated space. When assembling mural compositions, Bala often explores the everlasting yet increasingly fragile connection with our ecosystem in order to reconnect viewers with nature even within an urban environment. Included below are a series of mural paintings Maxfield Bala and his team have painted throughout Sonoma County in cities like Santa Rosa, Penngrove, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Two Rock, Rohnert Park, and the town of Sonoma.  Muralist Maxfield Bala COUNTY OF SONOMA MURAL Mural for the County of Sonoma. Our mission working with the County of Sonoma was to create a mural painting that would build community, and rehabilitate a highly trafficked intersection of the Downtown Penngrove California area. The wall was the focus of frequent graffiti, and overgrowth and transformed into a vibrant mural featuring local wildlife. The mural moving from left to right features Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly, Western Bluebird, Pacific Hound's Tounge Flower, Mountain Lion, Baby Blue Eyes Flower and a Mule Deer. All native to the Sonoma County. This mural was painted by lead artist Maxfield Bala using a variety of high quality aerosol spraypaints. The mural was made possible with help from community members and the students of Penngrove school who promoted the idea of the murals creation to the County of Sonoma. SONOMA MURAL "Sonoma" Mural painted or Public Storage. Our mission working with Public Storage was to create a mural painting that reflected the best of Sonoma Counties culture, industry and iconography. Based off this creative briefing we applied our signature collage style format to paint a 13' tall by 40' wide exterior wall mural. Moving from left to right the mural features a bushel of grapes to represent the Sonoma Wine Country, a trout is seen flipping out of the water, as a dairy cow is seen grazing to represent the counties dairy industry. Our state flower the California Poppy blooms while while the mustard flower, a prominent flower to the region sprout up aside the dairy cow painting. A hot air balloon often found floating in the northern end of Sonoma County sports the word "Sonoma" in bold letters" while an old pick up truck ships wine barrels and a chicken pokes it head out of the right hand side of the scene. The murals elements are all laid upon rolling hills and a blue sky. This realistic mural was painted by mural artist Maxfield Bala a Sonoma County native. This 13' foot tall by 40' wide outdoor commercial mural project was painted using acrylics, latex, and aerosols spray paints. It was ultimately clear coated upon our clients request to protect against UV rays and weather as well as graffiti. The public art mural can be seen directly off highway 101 North heading towards San Francisco, Ca. SONOMA HILLS FARM Mural and Sign Painting for Sonoma Hills Farm. Our Mission working with Sonoma Hills Farm was to create a large scale sign painting writing out the farm's name. What was once an overlooked retaining wall is now a colorful and vibrant mural and sign painting that can be seen for miles away helping those find the farm and enhancing the ambiance and branding. This painting spans over 60 feet wide, with letters standing at 4' tall. Ravens, Golden Poppies, Cannabis leaves, and a local butterfly help fill the wall surrounding the lettering. Cool tones and abstracts forms help to create cohesiveness with the pump house mural we painted on the East side of the property. Take a drive out to the county, you may just turn the corner and see this large scale sign painting demanding attention. LAGUNITAS TAPROOM MURAL Mural Painting For Lagunitas Taproom. Our Mission working with Lagunitas Brewing Company was to create a mural painting for their Petaluma, California Taproom and brewing Headquarters located in the heart of Sonoma County. This is the fourth mural we've hand painted for Lagunitas over the years and our second in Petaluma. We couldn't be happier to paint this large scale mural packed with the brand's iconography and hidden easter eggs. Moving from the left hand side of the mural to the right the painting features a monster armadillo attacking brewing towers. Green laser beams emit from it's eyes as octopus arms help take down the towers. Floating eyeballs rest aside large Lagunitas text. A UFO abducts a cow aside the famous orange couch. Another octopus arm holds up a sign reading Petaluma California while Millie, kegs and a chicken with a beer for a head get sucked into a wormhole. The total exterior mural painting is large-scale standing at eleven feet in height and over fifty feet in width. WELCOME TO PETALUMA MURAL Welcome To Petaluma Mural Painted For Public Storage. Our mission working with Public Storage and Terrapin Investments was to create a large scale Outdoor mural project that inspires and wholeheartedly represents the community of Petaluma, California, a small town about 45 minutes north of San Francisco, California. Muralist Maxfield Bala worked with the client to create a modernized version of the classic "Welcome to" postcard as a way to represent the City of Petaluma in a fun, vibrant and creative way. Each letter is filled with local iconography that helps tell a story relative to Petaluma's vibrant history and culture. The letter "P" features the Petaluma Clocktower, Letter "E" features the Petaluma River, Letter "T" features the Petaluma History Museum, Letter "A" features the Mcnear Building, and Letter "L" features Eggs as part of the town history as the Egg Capital of the world. The letter "U" features the old bank building a Downtown Petaluma fixture, Letter "M" features the Petaluma Grain Elevator and finally, Letter "A" features a chick. The "Welcome to Petaluma" mural is located off Highway 101 North heading towards San Francisco. The 13' tall by 40' mural was painted using a variety of materials including acrylics, latex, and aerosol paints and was sealed with a UV / weather resistant and a graffiti proof clear coat to further protect the exterior mural painting. BAY LAUREL CULINARY MURAL Our mission was to develop a detailed interior mural for Bay Laurel Culinary's lobby space within their all-new headquarters. The interior mural we were to develop was to feature and incorporate the bay area in the most heartfelt way possible. The owners wanted to incorporate the San Francisco , Bay Area, the suppliers, partners, and the events, locations and personal history that inspires their cuisine and overall mission. The mural painting is a map of the Bay Area and it surrounding areas from Sonoma to Mendocino, Alameda, and Santa Cruz Counties. The mural is packed with dozens of highly detailed images. Some of the notable Images include the Pt. Reyes lighthouse, Oakland Tribune Building, Berkley's Greek Theater, Alameda Cranes, Yosemite's Half Dome, Sacramento Capital Building, Winchester Mystery House, and the Golden Gate Park Windmill. Other elements relating to their culinary suppliers found within the line work mural painting include crab, sourdough bread, Anchor steam Beer, fresh fruits, wines, and cheese platters. These images were painted on a grey background with white line work to create a chalkboard like effect.  For more murals painted in Sonoma County by Maxfield Bala please visit our Mural Painting page.

Here are five of our most stunning we've painted throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area over the years. Each mural was painted by Bay Area Muralist Maxfield Bala and team using spray paints and acrylics. 1 AGRIHOOD- SANTA CLARA Our Mission working with the team at Core Builders, the City of Santa Clara, and Agrihood was to develop and paint a series of four murals at the new sustainable community development. The project was led by our lead muralist Maxfield Bala who in collaboration with the Agrihood team desired to highlight the local area's iconography and its vibrant history in relation to the theme of the Agrihood development. Agrihood itself is a sustainable community whose property includes a stunning garden and park that provides its tenants with fresh fruits, herbs and vegetables. Many of these tenants being veterans and low income residents from the County of Santa Clara. The murals are composed of two end cap murals facing Winchester Blvd, with one premier wall and one large scale water tower spanning three stories in height. The end caps highlight Santa Clara's former namesake as "The Valley of the Heart's Delight" -named after the high concentration of orchards, trees, flowers and plants. The compositions feature the area's top produced crops among local butterflies and wildlife like the endangered San Joaquin kit fox. The Premier wall features a classic take on a postcard style mural. Greetings from Santa Clara California reads boldy across the wall with each letter featuring prominent pieces of iconography specific to Santa Clara. From the historic train station, the peace rose, Santa Clara Mission, or the local university. To the right a large leaf cutter bee pollinates a Golden Poppy Flower further paying tribute to the area's farming history. The lettering is flanked by two "Most Beautiful Jewel" flowers native to the area. The Largest of the mural paintings at the Agrihood housing development is a three story corrugated metal water tower. The curved water tower required a series of unique design and painting techniques in order to properly develop and transfer the mural design. The mural paintings design features a series of local wildlife including a great blue heron and Monarch Butterflies among Apricot blossoms and other local flowers. The murals required two months to paint and were treated with a series of protective UV and graffiti resistant clear coats to protect and preserve the murals for years to come. 2 SPARE THE AIR- EMERYVILLE Our mission working with the Bay Area Air Quality Management district, Spare the Air campaign, Allison and Partners and Bay Street Emeryville was to create a large scale mural painting to beautify the Bay Street Campus in collaboration with supporting the Spare the Air campaign.  The Air District’s goal is to keep the air for Bay Area residents safe, by encouraging alternative options to single car trips. In the city of Emeryville, we’d like to remind passersby that the Bay Area is an active, inclusive community, with so many accessible options for making your commute and transportation healthier for all (walk, bike, train, bus, ferry, or even a hybrid of bike+mass transit. Keeping this idea in mind we strategically developed a concept to fit a dynamic mural that would work for all parties involved. The proposed site featured a vast variety of surface levels, surface materials and obstructions like doors, vents, railings and lights. These factors called for a dynamic mural design with strategically placed images in order to remove image distortion and effectively promote the values of our artistic vision and the Spare the Air campaign. Through multiple design rounds with input from the Mayor of Emeryville we landed on a colorful design paying homage to the relationship of public transit's ability to create a cleaner environment friendly to the bay area's natural habitats and wildlife. This included the feature of active modes of transportation like bike riding, cycling and electric scooter riding along with more traditional modes like the bus or train. Moving from left to right the mural features a Monarch butterfly and bicycle rider. A rider enters an electric double decker bus as a Great Blue Heron flies by. A cyclist looks back onto reeds breaking way to a Pelican. The mayor of Emeryville's dog pokes in head out from the bottom of the scene while an electric scooter rider paces down the bay front pathway. A Plover bird native to the local wetlands spread its wings aside a California Golden Poppy flower and a large Spare the Air logo. A man takes his bike off the train to the right of this logo while bold colors layered upon one another help to create movement, and depth throughout the mural. The mural took three weeks to complete and spans 110' wide and over 13' tall and was clear coated with an anti graffiti coating to have it outlast the elements. The mural is a permanent installation in Emeryville, California and was painted by our lead muralist, Maxfield Bala in conjunction with our mural team. 3 COUNTY OF SONOMA MURAL Our mission working with the County of Sonoma was to create a mural painting that would build community, and rehabilitate a highly trafficked intersection of the Downtown Penngrove California area. The wall was the focus of frequent graffiti, and overgrowth and transformed into a vibrant mural featuring local wildlife. The mural moving from left to right features Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly, Western Bluebird, Pacific Hound's Tounge Flower, Mountain Lion, Baby Blue Eyes Flower and a Mule Deer. All native to the Sonoma County. This mural was painted by lead artist Maxfield Bala using a variety of high quality aerosol spraypaints. The mural was made possible with help from community members and the students of Penngrove school who promoted the idea of the murals creation to the County of Sonoma. 4 SONOMA MURAL Our mission working with Public Storage was to create a mural painting that reflected the best of Sonoma Counties culture, industry and iconography. Based off this creative briefing we applied our signature collage style format to paint a 13' tall by 40' wide exterior wall mural. Moving from left to right the mural features a bushel of grapes to represent the Sonoma Wine Country, a trout is seen flipping out of the water, as a dairy cow is seen grazing to represent the counties dairy industry. Our state flower the California Poppy blooms while while the mustard flower, a prominent flower to the region sprout up aside the dairy cow painting. A hot air balloon often found floating in the northern end of Sonoma County sports the word "Sonoma" in bold letters" while an old pick up truck ships wine barrels and a chicken pokes it head out of the right hand side of the scene. The murals elements are all laid upon rolling hills and a blue sky. This realistic mural was painted by mural artist Maxfield Bala a Sonoma County native. This 13' foot tall by 40' wide outdoor commercial mural project was painted using acrylics, latex, and aerosols spray paints. It was ultimately clear coated upon our clients request to protect against UV rays and weather as well as graffiti. The public art mural can be seen directly off highway 101 North heading towards San Francisco, Ca. VISIT SWITZERLAND- SAN FRANCISCO CONSULATE MURAL Our mission working with Switzerland Tourism was to paint a mural on the residence of the Switzerland Consulate General After a photo taken by Canadian influencer Callum Snape was designated as the desired mural image, we replicated the photo to speciation only adjusting the photo to accommodate the elongated brick surface and railing. The mural painting depicts a backpacker making his way through the brilliant SwissAlps alongside a mountain lake and native grasses.

What Are The Best Materials and Equipment To Use For Mural Painting Development? Bala Creative is one of the top mural companies in the United States painting murals across the globe for clients like Samsung, Coca-Cola, and Sony. We're here to provide our expertise to make your mural painting development more effective using our recommended materials and equipment. It's critical in our opinion that an artist has a solid understanding of the proper materials and equipment to use when developing a mural project. We always like to say "Garbage in is garbage out"- Meaning that garbage materials and equipment can lead to garbage results that result in wasted hours. We're here to help artists looking to branch out from their canvas artwork onto monster walls that grace the city streets. Below we will list our top materials and equipment for developing a mural design. Best equipment, software, and materials for mural development: Wacom Cintiq No longer are the days of paper and pencil sketching when developing a mural painting. Today's atmosphere calls for the ability for ideas to quickly flow, revisions to be easily made, and the client to view the mural concept seamlessly and professionally over email. In order to accomplish this task Bala Creative switched from the timely process of hand drawn paper sketches to digital renderings created on drawing tablets. Paper sketches in the past cost us hundreds of hours when revisions needed to be made. This often meant starting from scratch to render the requested change orders and offering a product that wasn't always color accurate or too specification. The Wacom Cintiq 22' or the Wacom Cintiq Pro 24' is our preferred equipment when developing a mural project. The large drawing surface upwards to 24" wide will allow you the creative freedom to create your mural concepts effectively and efficiently. It was truly amazing how quickly this allowed us to take on more clients, financially benefit, and work with some of our dream clients. Designs came faster, more brilliant and more professional than before the use of the Wacom Cintiq. While expensive these tablets are worth every cent and offer the most professional results and are the industry standard for the world's top illustrators, graphic designs, animators and development companies. With a parallel surface feel, program compatibility and an HD resolution we would be lost without this tablet in our arsenal. Change order? No problem, a few quick edits to our photoshop layers and walla we've saved hours as opposed to our previous methods. Need to use a specific Pantone color? Simply change the color digitally, no more acrylics, and watercolors that have to be re applied only to find out its a few shades off from the clients request. Here are a few models we recommend you check out: Wacom DTK2420K0 Cintiq Pro 24 Creative Pen Display – 4K Graphic Drawing Monitor Wacom Cintiq 22 Drawing Tablet with HD Screen, Graphic Monitor IPad Pro Another quality drawing tablet is the IPad Pro which we've often used when developing our mural projects on site, with our client during a brainstorm meeting or while traveling. The IPad Pro and Apple pencil fit seamlessly in a backpack or book bag and allow for a muralist to easily visualize the mural walls atmosphere and environment while sketching on site or getting a couple designs created on the plane. You'll love how the IPad can take a photo of the desired mural wall to easily directly edit, sketch and manipulate your design on the proposed mural location. The IPad pro offers a high quality drawing experience only rivaled to the Cintiq models listed above. Here are the models we recommend: 2021 Apple 11-inch iPad Pro (Wi‑Fi, 2TB) Ipad Pencil Second Generation IMac If you're a creative person then it's no surprise that your scanned images, photo collections and basic applications on a laptop or phone can fill up your memory and slow down your computer. We've found ourselves hours into a project waiting for applications to load only to crash half way through using old or ineffective computers without the power to handle large file sizes. A one hour project can take five hours quite easily if your computer can't handle the workload you might find yourself during mural development. If you're looking to take your mural painting seriously we would recommend purchasing a high quality desktop computer that can handle the manipulation of large scale sketching, and rendering required by top name clients. This will save you time and money in the long run. Here is a model that we recommend: 2021 Apple iMac (24-inch, Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU and 7‑core GPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB) Adobe Creative Cloud Another essential for the mural development is the software used on these drawing tablets. Our go to programs are a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. Our top three software programs are Adobe Photoshop, Indesign, and Illustrator. Photoshop is essential for sketching, image manipulation and color revisions while Adobe Illustrator and indesign help us to generate stunning layouts and vector based designs for our clients. While other programs are available it's these programs that are the industry standard. You'll often find your mural clients sending along files in an Ai. format (Adobe Illustrator), or psd. format (Adobe Photoshop) with requests to manipulate or render said files for use as part of the mural design. Possessing these programs will make creation among clients seemless, effective and timely allowing you to spend less time on the computer and more time on the mural painting! Student discounts are available for those looking to harness their skills on these programs. Adobe Creative Cloud Download We hope this article helps up your mural painting development game to the next level!

Bala Creative specializes in the painting of office murals. Being from the San Francisco, Bay Area we've had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of clients within the tech industry including social media giants, start ups and hardware companies. These clients often call the City of San Francisco, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Mountain View their home. Each company projects a unique brand message seeking to differentiate with a unique take on their forward facing marketing and internal environment for potential client, partners and employees. It's this internal office environment our clients are most often seeking to enhance with a mural painting that expresses a brand vibe, or company message. It's no secret that murals enhance any environment their painted in, an office space just happens to be one pertinent example of this fact. Studies show the murals make a direct impact on office environments. Various studies have shown that offices with artwork and murals increase productivity in the workplace and help reduce burnout when compared to offices who don't possess artwork or murals within the workplace. A study in specific performed by Viking shows that more than half or 53% of workers said having art in the office makes them happier. Another 54% said art should be in every workplace. Arguably a happier employee should translate to a friendlier workplace simply by the addition of art, and in our case a mural painting. These studies in a more broad sense have shown that art in general helps to reduce anxiety and depression. A study by BMC Health involving over 22,500 participants showed that the presence of art showed a decrease in the feeling on anxiety by 71% and a decrease in depression by 73%. Additionally, 78% of respondents in a survey of over 800 employees working 32 major United States companies claimed that artwork in the workplace helped reduce stress. Aside from the positive mental and physical effects that artwork and murals may provide, the aesthetic of murals can communicate a strong message to potential employees, partners, and clients in the workplace. A hand painted mural in the office shows individuals a level of culture, professionalism and passion that surrounds the company. A blank white wall can become a message of empowerment for employees, communicate a culture to the workforce, drive home an aesthetic for partners or promote a level of class to potential investment of partners. Murals show a dedication in a variety of means that other office enhancements cannot. Here are a variety of examples of murals we've painted for our clients offices throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout Silicon Valley. Strava Office Murals- San Francisco, Ca Our mission collaborating with the amazing Jennet Liaw and Strava was to paint office murals for Strava HQ in San Francisco, Ca. Jennet Liaw is an "independent designer slash illustrator living and working in NYC and the internet, respectively." Using artist Jennet Liaw's brilliant design, we painted her illustration to exact specifications requested by the tech giant. The mural spanning 35' wide and 12' tall features a variety of unique icons, symbols, and illustrations in Jennet's unique style. The two murals feature black, White and Strava Orange to read "Connect athletes to what motivates them" a slogan that runs true throughout the Stava San Francisco office employees. Our team painted the interior murals during off-hours to avoid interrupting the workplace environment. BetterHelp Office Mural- Mountain View, Ca Our mission working with BetterHelp was to create a mural painting for their silicon valley based office in Mountain View, California. The mural for the BetterHelp office is located in the center of their main office on a wall that allows the entirety of their staff to view and interact with the artwork- even from a distance. The painting features abstract pattern work surrounding and a hand painted BetterHelp logo in varying shades of greens. The mural spans 16 feet wide and 8 feet tall and was completed over the course of two days using a series of high quality interior paints. The mural was painted to spec as requested by the team and on a schedule comfortable to the tech office's team. The mural painting replaces the blank white wall with a colorful, energetic and lively composition that we were happy to bring to life. Projects like these help to create an office environment friendly to its employees and prospective clients through an added level of craft and professionalism representative of the brand's core values. Render Office Mural- San Francisco, CA Our mission with Render Cloud Technologies in San Francisco, California was to create a mural painting that reflected the companies branding, mission and culture through a series of abstract forms. These abstract forms working together to form movement and depth through a series of transparent overlays and the painting transferred into the secondary wall. Rivian Motors Office Mural- San Jose, Ca Our mission working with Rivian was to adapt and paint a creative vision from their in house creative team. A cool base landscape leads to a mountain range and warm sunset made up of dozens of individual lines meticulously laid out. This abstract large scale mural spans over 30' feet wide and 7' tall. DropBox Office Mural- San Francisco, Ca Our mission working with DropBox was to help the San Francisco Based tech giant celebrate PRIDE. The interior mural painting for DropBox was painted to spec based on a predetermined design provided by the creative team. The project's main goal was to promote PRIDE week at their San Francisco Headquarters. The 10' x 10' abstract mural painting was painted using acrylics. Teladoc Health Office Mural- Mountain View, Ca Our mission working with Teledoc and Betterhelp was to create a mural painting for their San Francisco Bay Area-based office in Mountain View, Ca. The mural features bold Teladoc Health and Betterhelp logos along with the brand's mission statement all atop a monochromatic geometric world map featuring the company's locations from around the world- from Australia to New York, Europe, and beyond! This office mural measures ten feet tall by fifteen feet wide. No Filter Network Mural- Redwood City, Ca Our mission working with No Filter Network was to Replicate the No Filter Network logo off the highly trafficked El Camino Real Rd, in Redwood City. We transformed the blank white wall into a bold hand painted advertisment now seen by thousands daily.

We offer live painting services for a wide variety of promotional and cultural events all over the northern hemisphere. From Outside Lands in San Francisco to Hard Rock Hotels in Cancun, Mexico we've live painted walls that help create a unique buzz for our clients. Most recently we live painted a mural for our friends at Montana Cans and Riley Street Art Supply in Santa Rosa, Ca. Muralist, Maxfield Bala had six hours to create a mural using the Montana Cans line of products during Riley Street Art Supply's demo and sale day. Bala took the time to answer questions about the products and highlight the various uses of the product line. Have an event or promotional activation in the San Francisco. Bay Area that would be perfect for a live painting? Contact us at maxfield@maxfieldbala.com

With less then five days from the go ahead our mission working with Brand Brewery and DHL was to create a mural for DHL's fiftieth anniversary event to be held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California. We created the mural to represent the brands history using various vehicles, travel routes and period era items for a groovy, psychedelic look. The mural had to be created an a large scale canvas for transportation to various event sites and was painted in our studio right here in the San Francisco, Bay Area. Going above and beyond for our clients, we painted the mural with specialty blacklight paints to glow during the DHL event.