It’s a Laguna Beach wall with a storied history, a whale of a tail in Wyland’s journey to become one of the world’s greatest marine artists.
Now, a new chapter is being painted onto the massive canvas depicting a gray whale and her calf – and fans of Wyland’s art are watching it come to life.
Wyland this week started to paint the wall next to his Laguna Beach gallery, recreating his first-ever Wyland Wall originally done in 1981 when the then-budding 25-year-old artist set out to capture the sea creature he was inspired by from the same location 10 years earlier.
In the more than 40 years that followed, the renowned artist has made 103 more larger-than-life murals around the world – all with the hope of inspiring others to conserve the oceans and the creatures who call it home.
Now at age 68, he’s armed with a paint gun to share the same message, at the same location as his original.
Artist Wyland paints a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland is finishing a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland is finishing a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland is finishing a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland paints a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland is finishing a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland mixes paint for a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland is finishing a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Artist Wyland paints a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Show Caption1 of 9Artist Wyland paints a mural on the wall next to his gallery in Laguna Beach, CA on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
ExpandWyland had already re-created the image in 2019 on a huge canvas that hung from the wall, but that was recently damaged by the 70-mph winds that whipped through the region earlier this month.
So he decided to restore the original wall that sat beneath the canvas.
“It means everything, this is my original,” Wyland said as he took a break from his painting. “This is my child right here.”
The mural, which depicts one of the gray whale cows and calves that migrate along Southern California’s coast each winter, was first painted on Hotel Laguna property on Wyland’s 25th birthday, in 1981.
Wyland originally painted his first Whaling Wall in Laguna Beach in 1981 at age 25, 10 years after he spotted his first gray whale at the same location. (Photo courtesy of Wyland)At the time, it was meant to be his only one. A reporter at the unveiling asked how many more he would do, and he blurted out “100!”
“I should have said 10. Or 1. It took me 30 years to do that,” he said with a smirk. “I always do what I say.”
His massive marine paintings have become landmarks around the world – orcas in Seattle, a 235-foot-long mural in Hawaii of humpback whales and the marine mammals wrapped around the Long Beach Convention Center, which took six weeks and 4,000 gallons of paint to cover. It became the “world’s largest mural,” according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Some, as developers sought to buy buildings and wanted to do away with the art, have stirred controversy about public art and an owner’s right to change a building’s aesthetics.
The Laguna Beach mural was one of those. In the ’90s, even as Wyland’s name became known around the world, the mural was painted over by a previous operator of Hotel Laguna, who called it an eyesore.
The artist then outbid the hotel owner to buy the building next to the wall, paying $1 million in an attempt to save his artwork. But it was determined much of the wall sat on hotel land, and there was nothing Wyland could do to prevent the owners from painting over the peice.
“That was a long time ago. I was really proud of that wall and I was so sad it was destroyed,” Wyland said previously.
It sat as a beige, lifeless wall through the years.
After a Laguna Beach investor bought the hotel property in 2019, the duo agreed to the canvas project to bring back the original mural.
The project was greeted with much fanfare, the community coming out to an unveiling party, filling the parking lot.
Wyland’s hope was the canvas would one day go in a future Wyland of the Sea Art and Science Museum – but Mother Nature had other plans, the canvas tattered by the recent strong winds.
Fans stopped by this week to watch the artist in action as he added details to a massive eye, blended in light-colored paint to add texture to the whale’s gray skin and outlined the shape of the mammoth mother.
Carol Philipp drove from Long Beach after seeing an announcement on social media that the artist was going to be painting the wall.
“I don’t know how many days it’s going to take and I thought if I don’t jump on it now, I may miss it,” she said. “It’s just so special. You get to see how the details get done. This morning, it was just a blank wall, and then he painted the whale today. It’s amazing.”
Philipp said she bought a Wyland oil painting back in 1984, which she still has, and has been a fan since.
“I have never seen him paint in person, so this was a good opportunity,” she said. “It’s just so realistic and the portions are always spot on.”
It may not turn out exactly like the first, the mom will likely be bigger than the original, Wyland said, and more kelp is growing around the pair.
“I’m winging it,” he said.
He hopes in the future to again recreate the art using hand-painted porcelain tiles, which will last longer for future generations to enjoy, he said.
When asked how long this latest painting will take, he simply smiled and looked at the canvas, the ocean glistening in the backdrop.
“You know when this is done? When it’s finished,” he said with a cheeky smile. “You know when it’s finished? When it’s done.”
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