VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Artist Tessa Hall Duquette, who owns The Garage VB, has given buildings a breath of life with her murals.
Her first-ever mural was part of the 2022 ViBe Creative District's Mural Festival.
"I feel [my first mural was] sort of where [my kids] were like, 'Oh my gosh, mom is actually an artist.' They helped paint it too which is really special," said Tessa Hall Duquette.
Duquette said the owner of the building wanted something nautical-themed, so she decided to paint the shells she collected with her kids at Croatan.
"I had never done a mural before. I always painted really small illustrations with colored pencils and markers. I had two art teachers from Norfolk Academy help me who knew what they were doing. So that was really helpful, kind of keeping me calm," said Duquette.
Duquette said she drew the image first and then used a projector to do the outlines.
She shared a pro tip for other artists who want to start mural painting: "The one thing that I should've done, they always say to do your background first and I was like, 'No, I'm going to not do that.' I should've. I almost ran out of the black background. So day 10, we were scraping the paint," said Duquette.
Nearly two years after completing her first mural, she's completed 20 murals since. She said she loves seeing everyone's selfies in front of her murals.
"It's such a great colorful place and I love the community a lot," said Duquette.
