Renowned muralist Mauricio Ramirez is more than two weeks into painting a massive mural honoring the late Bob Uecker in downtown Milwaukee — and says he's now in the most challenging phase of the project.
Uecker passed more than a year ago, after 54 seasons behind a Brewers' microphone.
Ramirez, 37, known for his work across Milwaukee, including a mural of Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, said the Uecker mural will be the biggest and most difficult of his career.
"I'm feeling great, you know, it's like my 14th day working straight and I'm not getting burned out, but I'm definitely feeling, you know, I'm in the thick of, you know, the entire project and it's probably the most difficult right now," Ramirez said.
The sheer scale of the work presents unique obstacles, including painting at heights of 100 feet on an aerial platform while wearing a safety harness.
"I think one of the things is just the sheer height, like how high I need to work," Ramirez said.
The mural features a full front-facing portrait of Uecker — a format Ramirez said he has never tackled at this scale.
"It's a front portrait. I've never really painted like a full front portrait this size, and so I'm just kind of learning a lot of new things as I'm going, but that alone in itself is just, you know, the heights, you know, the front portrait, cause people can tell if it's off right away, but my goal is to just make it really recognizable as soon as you glance at it," Ramirez said.
Watch: Bob Uecker mural takes shape in downtown Milwaukee as artist reaches the most difficult stretch
To bring Uecker's face to life, Ramirez breaks the image into a grid of 6-foot by 3-foot tiles, working through each section and each color individually.
"I split it up into a grid, and I work by 6 ft by 3 ft tiles, and I just take each section at a time. And even further, I'll even go and just take each color at a time and just kind of break it down and just kind of really blend everything in with the aerosol cans," Ramirez said.
He keeps his paint supplies organized on a platform alongside him, including a cooler to prevent the aerosol cans from overheating.
"You pretty much have all the entire spectrum of all the browns, all the flesh tones, and then I have my cooler right here where I kind of keep the paint nice and cool, so it doesn't get too hot," Ramirez said.
When the mural is complete, Ramirez said it will stand as the defining work of his career.
"It's the biggest, it's gonna be the hardest, it's the most difficult. So I think after it's all said and done, I think it's gonna be sitting at the top. It's gonna be a career highlight for sure," Ramirez said.
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