They painted what they saw along Franklin Boulevard. For David Peterson, it was a vintage gas station reborn as a muffler shop. Patris Miller depicted shadows falling across a residential street. And Karen Dukes captured a broken-down "drive-thru" sign at a busy intersection.

Their work is part of the Franklin Boulevard Urban Plein Air Project, which over the past two weeks had 22 artists painting mini-murals – generally 24 by 32 inches – on the sides of Franklin Boulevard businesses. "Plein-air" is a style of painting produced outdoors in natural light.

The 22 resulting murals are bright spots on what was dubbed "Sacramento's ugliest street" a quarter-century ago.

"We haven't been able to escape that," said Kathy Tescher, executive director of the North Franklin District Business Association, which sponsored the $22,000 public art project. It was organized by the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission.

"Here we're adding beauty in a totally different sort of way," Tescher said. "This makes everybody aware that the boulevard is changing, by the caliber of artists painting on Franklin."

Participating artists ranged from the established – Hearne Pardee, Mark Bowles, Juanishi Orosco, John Pugh, Anthony Padilla, Andrew Patterson-Tutschka and Stephanie Taylor – to Dukes, who took up painting just three years ago.

"I'm a scene painter, not a plein-air painter," said Peterson, "so I changed the scene, and if it makes people smile, I'm happy." His Muffler Man mural brings together an old tow truck, a pipe bender and a muffler-parts sculpture.

Each artist was assigned to a different commercial building along a two-mile stretch of Franklin Boulevard.

It's a fascinating thoroughfare.

Just south of Broadway, Franklin slides along the edge of the Curtis Park neighborhood, with its red-tile roofs and the occasional white picket fence. Gunther's Ice Cream, which boasts a fresh Pardee mural, is a neighborhood institution.

After Franklin crosses 12th Avenue, its character changes. Suddenly, it's a very busy street that dashes noisily through an area populated by, among other things, auto-body shops, used-furniture stores, used-car lots, ethnic markets and at least one discount cigarette store.

The owners of 22 buildings – from International Tow Service to Diego's Hair Studio and St. Patrick's Thrift Store – allowed the artists to paint their property in the name of public art.

The murals are temporary. After March 12, 2010, building owners can choose to keep them or paint over them.

The plein-air project was dreamed up by Shelly Willis, manager of the arts commission's Art in Public Places program. She was inspired by artist Ellen Harvey, who between 1999 and 2001 illegally painted small landscapes on graffiti sites in New York City.

"I have an interest in community development and especially urban design, and how a community is affected by the way it looks," Willis said. "Public art is integral to that idea in a lot of ways. Public art adds beauty to a place and can spark imagination and make people think about things they would never have thought of. It can create social change in some cases."

Each artist received a $500 stipend and bought their own supplies. They were to paint the immediate urban environment on their designated building.

"So, people could look at the place and see it in maybe a different way, through the artists' eyes, to see the beauty in that place," Willis said.

The Franklin Boulevard Urban Plein Air Project has three components: In addition to the murals, there will be a project kickoff reception Saturday at Tangent Gallery, which has an exhibit of the participating artists' traditional work, and an artists-in-schools program this fall that will result in three additional murals.

While many Sacramentans will see the murals as colorful blurs as they drive along Franklin Boulevard, Tescher took the time to view some up close. She was left breathless.

"I'm amazed at the loving care the artists have taken in portraying sites on Franklin," she said. "They have captured beauty that is astounding.

"We can proudly say we are not the ugliest street in Sacramento."

Call The Bee's Dixie Reid, (916) 321-1134.