“I’ve always been what my family would call ‘artsy fartsy,'” Chloe Tschudy said.
Artist Chloe Tschudy is bringing color to Fond du Lac-area businesses
Chloe Tschudy of Waupun, the artist behind Oddball Arts LLC, specializes in murals, window painting and other art throughout Wisconsin.
Waupun artist Chloe Tschudy creates murals and window paintings for businesses in Wisconsin.She specializes in helping small businesses advertise through her colorful and creative artwork.Her process varies from free-painting on windows to detailed digital sketches for larger mural projects.
FOND DU LAC – Colorful art has been brightening up businesses and more in the Fond du Lac area and beyond.
Chloe Tschudy, of Waupun, the artist behind Oddball Arts LLC, specializes in murals, window painting and other art throughout Wisconsin, following a passion that unexpectedly turned into a career.
“I’ve always been what my family would call ‘artsy fartsy,'” she said. “That’s what they called me my whole life. Always doodling, doing weird crafts and stuff.”
However, her main art track at first was music, pursuing orchestra as a classically trained upright bassist. When that didn’t work out the way she planned, she moved on, and while working in a coffee shop in Beaver Dam, she started getting into window painting for the storefront. The artwork grew from there.
As Oddball Arts, named from another family term of endearment, Tschudy originally did makeup artistry and body painting until 2020 — the pandemic, along with the physical strain from standing all day and the lack of demand for special effects makeup outside of Halloween, inspired a pivot in medium to commissioned art, including murals and windows.
Tschudy paints for a variety of people and businesses, from Culver’s in Fond du Lac and Oshkosh to small businesses like stores, spas, daycares, dog groomers and even auto shops. She said she likes helping and working with small businesses so she can see them be successful and show people who they are and what they do.
“For me, small businesses are like the heartbeat of our communities, and when they struggle, it’s not just the business struggling. They’re our neighbors and our friends and our family,” she said.
Chloe Tschudy’s painting process blends creativity and client needs.
With window painting, clients often give Tschudy a logo, theme or other ideas to follow, but the more vague the prompt, the more she gets to paint freely, using her expertise on what’s legible from the street and what fits the clients’ goals best. Clients get the final say, but she’ll always suggest what’s best for them.
“I really like to just free paint,” she said. “I’m not typically someone who does sketches ahead of time for window painting.”
For murals, however, the process has more back-and-forth and sometimes depends on whether there’s an application process.
City-based projects, for example, have calls for artists, and Tschudy’s mural “Hippy Dippy” is now part of the Downtown Fond du Lac “Art Lot” on Fourth Street.
After the application process, she uses the dimensions to come up with the budget and the digital sketches, based on a prompt or color pallette, if needed. When approved, she gets the colors she needs from her contractor, Sherman Williams, and decides where to start.
Murals can vary with how long they take, depending on their size, the weather and other factors. For large spaces, Tschudy said she usually starts with a paint sprayer for background colors, and for smaller surfaces, she likes a 2-inch brush.
A particularly long undertaking was the fence at the Thirsty Beaver in Beaver Dam, a 200-foot long space to cover during a period of summer that reached more than 90 degrees. The piece includes hidden details like a bar of “Sweet Caroline” and the owner’s wedding song, and a second mural that followed on the inside features UV-reactive paint.
“My band got to open the stage when they unveiled this, and my bandmate helped me paint it, too,” Tschudy said.
Both the window painting and the murals help her advertise not only a small business, but also herself as an artist, gaining attention throughout the region and winning best artist in Fond du Lac County three years in a row from the community choice awards.
She said, “I wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t for people in the community that continue to support me and share my stuff.”
Daphne Lemke is the Streetwise reporter for the Fond du Lac Reporter. Contact her at dlemke@gannett.com.