Eleven-Story Mural Was a Tall Order

Call it the mural of the unknown Raider.

On the west side of the Los Angeles Federal Savings building at 12160 Victory Blvd. is an 11-story silhouette of a Raider with his hands to his side standing in the tunnel at thA. Coliseum. According to bank manager Ed Troutner, a lot of people think it’s tight end Todd Christensen.

“We get calls all the time,” he said, “but I know it’s not Christensen. I was at the Coliseum when the photo was made. We used an actor.”

The mural was done in conjunction with the bank, the Raiders and Nike. Its producer was Chiat/Day, the same advertising agency responsible for the Coca-Cola television commercial featuring Mean Joe Greene. Blue Wallscapes of Mill Valley, Calif., painted the mural.

Blue Wallscapes paints wall murals all over the country. It has two other sports-related murals in the L. A. area, both 100-foot-high billboards for Nike. There’s one near the Coliseum of Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes and the other at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street of John McEnroe. A 90-foot-high mural of the Dodgers’ Pedro Guerrero at Broadway and 4th Street was replaced recently by an ad for Mexicana Airlines.

How do you paint an 11-story mural? “We use a technique similar to the one Michelangelo used in the Sistine Chapel,” said Barry Blue of Blue Wallscapes. Blue said that technicians “grid off” sections on the photo, then corresponding grids are drawn on the building surface. A computer is used to define the color patterns.

After the Raiders photo was shot, it took two painters 10 days to paint the mural, which is 50 feet wide and 110 feet high. They used nearly 50 gallons of oil-base paint.

“Most of our painters are artists who started out doing portraits,” Blue said. “You very seldom get a house painter you can convert to an artist.”

Thanks to the absence of high-rises in the area, the Raiders mural dominates the landscape. “On a clear day,” Troutner said, “you can see it from a mile and a quarter away.”

The mural is the third at the bank. In 1975, a bicentennial mural went up, followed by an Olympic mural, which was replaced last May by the Raider. Troutner expects to have a new design on the wall by May, 1987.

Why the Raiders? “The bank has become close to them,” Troutner said. “We sponsor their postgame show and put out their press guides. The mural depicts a commitment to excellence.”