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January 14, 2016

Jasper Wong creates the first in a series of 17 murals for Designed on Surface



Designed on Surface is a collaboration with artists across the globe to create murals embodying the spirit of people who do great things and the places that inspire them. Each week we highlight individual artists and their inspiring work – starting with Jasper Wong from the USA.

Jasper Wong is an artist, illustrator, and curator. He is a renaissance man wearing many different hats. Jasper is best known for his art that combines an Asian-influence with pop culture. On the Surface team, we have been huge fans of Jasper’s for quite some time and first introduced you to his work with Surface during the Transformation Challenge.

This last fall we partnered with Jasper to bring a community of artists together, all working on Surface. We were inspired by Jasper’s work with POW! WOW! – a global network of artists who organize gallery shows, schools for art and music, and a creative space named Lana Lane Studios in Honolulu. Each year, artists create amazing murals in Tokyo, Long Beach, Hawaii, and Taiwan.

Jasper Wong creating his mural.

Like most muralists, technology plays an important role in the creative process for Jasper. He completed a mural in Long Beach this past fall to kick off a global series of murals that are all identifiable by a blue border and by his interpretation of what it means to Do Great Things.

Jasper Wong's mural in Long Beach, CA.

“The concept centers on young people being inspired to “do great things”. In this case, two of my characters are drawn to space and another to nature. I’m also thinking about the tools needed to “do great things”. Such tools as paintbrushes, spray cans, binoculars, and telescopes”
Jasper Wong

Creating a mural is an iterative process. Jasper might start on a paper, sketching out ideas he is trying to capture in the mural, but quickly moves to Surface and Adobe Photoshop because working digitally affords greater flexibly and faster iterations on his concepts.

When it comes to painting a large mural, grid work and projection are both preferred methods to getting the layout, proportions, and outline onto the wall. Jasper was able to project his artwork directly onto the wall from Photoshop using the Mini DisplayPort on his Surface Pro 4.

Sketching mural art with the help of Surface Pro 4.
Jasper Wong designing his mural on Surface.
Jasper Wong painting his mural.

When we spoke with Jasper he shared with us that: “Full desktop apps is everything! It’s not some abridged version. You can’t have a professional tool without full versions of creative applications. Using Surface is about streamlining the creative process.”

We were lucky to document the entire creation of Jasper’s mural in Long Beach with time-lapse photography. Check out this video:

If you want to learn more about how Surface helps Jasper do great things head on over to surface.com/art and read the stories of 17 artists creating murals all over the world.

We will be back next week with another story about artists doing great things with Surface.