Hartland City Council commissioned Steve DeLaitsch to paint a mural on the Olson Excavating building at 615 Broadway Ave. as part of a beautification project for the city.

People standing at the corner of Johnson Street and Broadway Avenue have a good view of it. It shows old photographs of Hartland scenes.

The photos are of agricultural Hartland in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One is a photograph of men pulling a horse and carriage. Another shows a farm scene with hay and a tractor. Another still is of what downtown Hartland used to be.

The images vary in size and their composition resembles a page out of a scrapbook.

For the Hartland mural, DeLaitsch copied the antiquated photos to create the size he wanted and scaled them to the wall. He then attached them to a board in the same way he wanted to arrange the images on the mural.

When painting, with some of the images he used a grid system and some he did freehand. DeLaitsch painted with rollers to get the base and went back in with his oil brush for details. The brick on the building, he said, had a glaze that made it difficult to paint, so a primer was needed.

Up close the images seem blurred with globs of paint, but as the viewer steps back to street level the shading and details come together — reminiscent of a Monet painting. He used black and white with sepia tones and some color for depth.

He started in June and worked four to six hours a day. He finished near the end of August.

A native of Owatonna, DeLaitsch has been painting for more than 30 years. He has a shop and studio in New Richland and resides in Waseca. After graduation, he attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

DeLaitsch said he has traveled the area a lot and has been commissioned to do some large scale pieces. He does a variety of art with many different mediums — from sketches to watercolor and oil. Through his office in New Richland, he also provides design and remodeling services.

He has done murals in the State Bank of New Richland and the First National Bank of Waseca. DeLaitsch also worked on a tile mosaic on a building in Owatonna.