Three Reasons to Coat Your Mural

New mural? Whether you’re an artist, building owner, community member or working with a public art program, we know you want to see murals last. We do too! Here are three reasons to use preservation coatings to protect public art.

1. Keep Paint Brighter, Longer: When paint is exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun, the binder begins to weaken and this causes pigments to fade. Keep in mind too that not all paints are created equal. The differences between manufacturers, ingredients, and even the age of paints can contribute to the deterioration of outdoor murals, from peeling to chalking and more. Using conservation-grade preservation coatings that have UV stabilizers strengthens paints and helps keep your colors bright under the sun! Check out ColorShield UV Paint Preserver to keep paints strong, vibrant, and attached to the wall. ColorShield also helps protect paint from efflorescence and water damage but we’ll save that for another blog post!
2. Minimize the Cost of Repairing Murals: It’s become standard practice in the field of public art to plan for the long-term maintenance of murals so they can continue to be beautiful and inspiring sites for local residents and visitors. The right preservation coatings make it possible to repair murals that have been tagged, buffed, or even fully painted over without the high cost of repainting the entire artwork. A sacrificial coating is a fully reversible barrier that protects painted surfaces from damage, which could include oil stains on a mural inside a high-traffic restaurant, hate speech painted over a mural representing BIPOC communities, and much more. OverCoat UV Paint Protector is a semi-sacrificial coating that makes it easy to remove dirt and graffiti, and bring murals back to their original condition. It’s best used with ColorShield UV Paint Preserver but OverCoat also has UV stabilizers and can be used on its own.
3. The Public Cares: Once a mural is painted, it becomes a part of the public landscape. There are stakeholders from working artists to commissioning agencies to families who have lived in the neighborhood for generations. Communities deserve beautiful and well maintained murals that uplift and empower the people who see them everyday. We’ve seen murals become historic landmarks for communities. We’ve also seen community members struggle to restore and protect murals that have fallen into disrepair. Applying preservation coatings to new and restored murals makes long-term maintenance accessible for artists, communities, and commissioning agencies. Murals, at their core, are sites that matter to the public.

Keep an eye out for a future blog post on how to build mural preservation into your project budget!