Picture of Happiness : Muralist Illustrates History and Attractions of Balboa as a Labor of Love

NEWPORT BEACH — Donald MacDonald’s co-workers on the Sony Pictures lot think he has spent this last two weeks of unpaid leave painting a nursery for his expected child.

His wife did that.

MacDonald has been working on another labor of love: a 170-foot mural depicting the history of the Balboa peninsula. Merchants hope the mural on the west wall of the Balboa Market will attract new visitors to the area. “It’s the talk of the town,” said Nick Licata, 32, a bartender across the street. “Everybody keeps saying how great it is. We’ve been watching him day by day. It just keeps getting better.”

MacDonald volunteered for the project as a gift to friend and Balboa businessman, Joe Soloman, who has cancer.

“This was something I could do for him,” said MacDonald, a 41-year-old movie set artist of Huntington Beach. “When my mother was dying of cancer, I couldn’t do anything.”

His work, which will be dedicated July 1, shows Balboa’s most famous buildings, a beach filled with people, the Ferris wheel at the Fun Zone, and the old Red Line train that used to run through town.

“It is going to be beautiful,” said Soloman, 66. “The city is fortunate to have someone like him. He is one of the best muralists around.”

MacDonald normally paints backdrops for Sony Pictures. His recent works include a sky in “Geronimo,” the New York City skyline in the upcoming “Indian in a Cupboard” and Dennis’ neighborhood in “Dennis the Menace.”

“In my line of work, I never get feedback,” MacDonald said. “This gives me a chance for some feedback, and boy am I getting it.”

One local told him, “This is the best thing that has happened in this town in a long time,” MacDonald said.

And others are trying to fit themselves into the mural.

“The police on bikes rode up and said, ‘I think you need us on bikes here,’ ” MacDonald said, pointing to the beach.

“A man asked me how much it would cost to have his face painted on the surfer,” he said with a grin.

And another woman, MacDonald said, rides by periodically to ask when he is going to add whales to the mural.

“I think she’s happy with it, even without whales,” he said.

A tradition has sprung up around the mural, to MacDonald’s chagrin. Every day at 4 p.m., he said, the owner of the bar across the street brings customers over to be photographed in front of the mural. If MacDonald turns his back, he said, he finds them on the scaffolding.

Despite these little travails, MacDonald said he’s happy to do the work if it will help the community’s ailing tourism industry.

“It’s going to liven up the area,” MacDonald said. “And I’m glad to do it, what with the county in bankruptcy and the hard times that some of the businesses are having on the peninsula.”

MacDonald is working for nothing, although Soloman said that MacDonald easily could get $15,000 for such a work. The Balboa Merchant Owners Assn., which thought up the idea to revitalize the downtown area, is paying for paint and supplies.

“It’s an opportunity for all of us to have something nice,” said Dayna Pettit, 58, the president of the association.

George Toth, owner of the Balboa Market at 606 E. Balboa Blvd., said he’s glad the mural will adorn the side of his store.

“We plan to keep it a long time,” he said. “This building was built in the late ‘30s, and it has withstood all the earthquakes. It’s strong and sturdy, and now it will have something nice on the side of it.”