Motorists who park in Lancaster city's Prince Street garage will soon have a gradual transition as they walk from the dimly lit interior of the concrete structure onto Orange Street.

There are clouds floating in a bright blue sky, a sun rising on familiar buildings and signs welcoming visitors to Lancaster on each end of a 153-foot-long mural being painted this month in the pedestrian walkway leading from the parking garage.

The mural in the Lancaster Parking Authority garage is being painted by Michelle Shuff, who grew up in Lancaster and now lives just across the Lebanon County line in Cornwall.

"Her work stuck out. It's not what you would expect from a typical muralist," John Lustig, Lancaster city's public art manager, said.

Lustig, who helped select Shuff's proposal from a half-dozen submissions, praised her "warmer sensibility" and her appreciation of the space. Her work as an interior designer helped give her that perspective, he said.

Shuff said she was an art major at Susquehanna University, but her post-graduate training at New York's Pratt Institute was in graphic design. She got her start as a muralist six years ago after the birth of her son. She painted a mural on his bedroom wall. A real estate agent friend saw it and told others. It snowballed from there, she said.

On Thursday, her third day of painting, Shuff was enjoying being in a much more public workspace than a child's bedroom.

"People walk by. They're friendly. They're excited about it," she said. At least one has said she brightened their day.

"And you don't have to worry about spilling paint on people's carpets."

For inspiration, Shuff and her father, G. Edward LeFevre, looked at the city's iconic buildings and included representations of them in the mural streetscape.

Central Market, Lancaster Amtrak station, the Heritage Center building, Fulton Opera House, Lancaster County courthouse and Trinity Lutheran Church are among the buildings represented.

"If you know what the buildings look like, you might say, 'Oh, this looks like that,' " she said of the simplified designs.

Shuff is being paid $2,400 for the mural. The funds remain from a $3,000 grant received in 2009 from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. The grant also funded the temporary display of a metal sculpture adjacent to the garage along Orange Street.

With the funds come a deadline. The grant award must be spent by the end of the month, said Shuff.

"I'm really excited about it," Larry Cohen, Lancaster Parking Authority executive director, said.

He linked the mural to colored lighting added to the garage's circular ramp two years ago and to the art galleries along the block.

"It's kind of becoming an art garage, for as much as you can do that," Cohen said. And it might not be the last garage mural in the city.

"Hopefully we can take this program and expand it elsewhere," he said.

bharris@lnpnews.com