By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
From retail worker to nearly 38,000 followers on Instagram, Whitney Hayden is making a name for herself as an artist. Based in Houston, Texas, Hayden will soon complete a "Welcome to Great Bend" mural on a building located at 10th and Washington. Hayden is self-taught, and her new career began in an unexpected place: her mother's kitchen.
"She had a tiny wall in her kitchen that she had painted with chalkboard paint and it was always blank because she can't draw," Hayden said. "One day, I was doodling on it and created this Jimmy Buffett-style restaurant menu and she was amazed. She thought it was so cool and I could do this for a living. I thought she was crazy."
Over the next few years, Hayden painted nurseries for friends with newborns. She posted some photos to social media and her career took off. Great Bend is the farthest she's ventured from home, but she's also done murals nine hours from home in west Texas and in Louisiana.
Hayden specializes in a "color melt" technique. She applied a vibrant base canvas of color with a spray gun and will paint the many images in the mural with a brush. The 420-square-foot mural will be seen by as many as 17,000 passing motorists each day. The images in the mural are first projected onto the building, and that's how Hayden was able to preview her finished product to Barton Arts Movement.
"There was a general idea already expected and I just went with it," said Hayden. "I submitted several different doodle layouts and one was chosen."
The mural should be completed over the weekend. Hayden also paints custom art on canvas and recently opened a studio. One Great Bend resident, completely by coincidence, had previously purchased a Hayden painting and was able to meet the artist.
You can follow Hayden on her Murals by Whitney Instagram page, or purchase canvas art at her website.
The latest Great Bend mural is sponsored by Barton Arts Movement with the help of several community partners. For more information or to donate to future projects, visit bartonartsmovement.com.