If you’ve been driving up Lincoln Avenue in Fennimore this summer, you’ve probably noticed a “work in progress” that is for the most part, completed.

Local artist Des Edge has been quite busy this summer painting the giant ice cream cone mural located on the side of Scoops, Fennimore’s new ice shop located at 1064 Lincoln Avenue.

Scoops owner and family friend Kris Fry brought up the idea of a mural on the side of the building to Edge last summer.

Edge, whose artistic fortes are acrylic paintings on wood and digital art prints, said she had never done a project that big and thought about it over the last year before deciding to give it a go.

“I was nervous about doing a mural, as I’ve never done something that large before,” Edge explained. “I have painted on the my Mom’s garage door, but never anything like this.”

She, along with some help, starting cleaning off the previous white wall during this past Memorial Day weekend. 

Once it was cleaned, she projected the design, drawn on paper, onto the wall with a projector and the project was underway.

“I work until 2 p.m., so I usually came over after work to work on it. Our weekends are pretty busy so it was a Monday through Friday thing,” Edge stated. Extra kudos to Edge as this summer wasn’t exactly on the cool side, with many, many humid and “sun scorching” days this season.

“I was super excited once I got going,” Edge went on to say. “I’m a little scared of heights, but got used to being on a ladder after awhile.”

After many afternoons/evenings this summer, the mural was finished about the middle of August, nearly three months from the cleaning of the wall to the mural we see today.

And if social media is any indicator, the general public is quite impressed with her project, as many people have snapped pictures of themselves, kids, grandkids, and others standing in front of the impressive mural while tagging Scoops on Facebook, and leaving compliments in the comments.

When asked if she would ever tackle an art project this large again, Edge said that already a few people have contacted her with other designs/projects in mind.