- I quit my job a year ago and I've been doing full-time art on my own.

It's been cool.

I started entrepreneurship out of high school.

Doing murals was just like a bigger canvas to make art.

I was used to doing small sneakers and maybe even smaller-sized canvases, but nothing as big as a wall.

So I did my bedroom wall.

Like, growing up it was just a bunch of scribble and I always imagined like being able to do the big murals that you see like downtown.

18, I was doing sneakers.

I probably didn't get my first job until like 20, but from 18 to 20, or 17 to 20, I was just doing sneakers every day, and that was like a good lesson on how to manage money and deal with customers.

- My name is Sterling Lyons I'm the owner of The Biggest Ltd. clothing store selling in streetwear, hype streetwear and everything in Chesapeake, Virginia.

I chose Derek because I saw his work.

His work was very good, his lines were very crisp and everything popped every time I looked at all of his artwork.

This mural means a lot.

It's basically the main focal point of my business.

And also at the middle of it, it has "The Boondocks" characters representing my two sons.

So I mean it has sentimental value as well.

- Yeah, he hit me up, said he was having a clothing store that he was trying to put together and he wanted to collage a bunch of different streetwear brands that a lot of the teenagers and young adults are wearing these days.

He gave me full creative control.

So the thought process in this one was just taking all the brands that he would have to offer and making a bunch of art pieces that are represented by those brands and making one big piece that would all go together.

- What I really want it to be is a marketing piece.

I really would like it to be a good piece.

People can come in and see where they are.

Staple for us, you'll know when you see that mural, you have to be at this place to see that because it's one of one.

- I met Derek in school.

We went to high school together and we pretty much just kept in touch over years 'cause he did like art and shoes and stuff like that.

So we met through school.

Ivy was five when she passed, so I had her for five years.

This is not even how the mural was supposed to be originally when we planned it out.

When he had did my first room, which was my business room, and he did a cloud mural and then after he did that, I pretty much was like, "Okay, I want my whole house to be done."

So we kind of started thinking about ideas for the living room and the bedroom and stuff like that.

But I knew the living room was like the next thing I wanted to do.

Originally I thought like, okay, I wanted like a rose wall, a flower mural, and that's pretty much what he had came here to do, but at the time, Ivy had passed, so when he had came to originally do the project, I was kind of like joking around with him and I was like, "You should put a dove on the wall, like something just to kind of like represent Ivy.

Like put a little tag with her name on it, something."

He basically was like, "Okay, I'm gonna come up with something," and this is what it was that he came up with.

- Once I got there, her dog had just recently passed and I had met her dog from the last project I did with her and we had just got to talking about the dog and all the memories.

As I was doing it, she mentioned the dog and how she would love to add a dove in to maybe commemorate her dog, but the size of the flowers I had, for me to do a dove, it would've had to have been huge for it to be proportional to the flower.

So I thought it would be better to just add the dog's face maybe peeking through the flowers.

And when I did that, she loved the idea and it just all came together.

I'm a dog person so she was there every day, every time I was painting and she was getting yelled at to get out of the room, so she wouldn't bother me, but she kept making her way back every single time.

And when it was finally time for me to finish and pack up and I left, she was telling me that Ivy was upset that I was gone 'cause she enjoyed my company, so it was sad that she had passed.

- Honestly, the mural is enough for me.

Like, this make me think of Ivy every day 'cause I see it in front of me every day.

So I feel like that was really the main reason why I wanted to do this too 'cause like I told Derek, my whole goal was really to bring peace back into my home.

Because after Ivy died, like I said, that was really my everything, it was me and her.

So I just wanted it to feel like home again because without her I just felt like it was just something missing.

So now that I do have the mural, like I do feel a lot better.

I do feel like I'm at peace now, so.

- [Photographer] All right.

- It touches people in different ways and it's viewed in different ways.

So if I'm able to make someone feel better about a situation with my talent, I'll do it every single time.