MERIDEN — After four months of working on converting a bus into a digital art studio, Apollo Maldonado is finally ready to open the doors of his mobile studio to the public. 

“I can’t believe that I actually did this,” Maldonado said. “My dream when I first thought about a digital painting experience, I initially wanted it to be on a bus, a school bus...it came out a lot better than I expected.” 

The bus includes a star ceiling and computers. All of the wood he used was hand cut. 

“All of this stuff I have never done before,” Maldonado said. “All of the knowledge that I have, all of the creativity, my father taught me since I was seven years old, I put it into this bus.” 

His father, Angelo Maldonado, did not see the bus until it was finished.

“I think he did a fantastic job,” Angelo Maldonado said. “It is amazing … he took all the seats off, redid the floor, the ceiling with the stars and all that, that was amazing.”

Last Saturday, Apollo Maldonado officially debuted the bus to the public at the Meriden Green during the Chalk the Walk and Taste of Meriden events. Mayor Kevin Scarpati got a chance to see the bus.

The bus “is certainly a work of art,” Scarpati said. “I think it’s a pretty neat concept, certainly outside the box making this a global art lab so to speak.”

People can book the bus at Maldonado’s website for his business, All Sketched Out. 

“People don’t come to me, I go to them,” Maldonado said. “The idea is to work with households, with families.”

Maldonado wants to see how well it does and then possibly purchase other buses to convert into mobile studios. 

“I seriously want to do it again,” Maldonado said. “That’s the goal …”

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