Her coy smile is hard to miss. The new mural on the west wall of the Broadway Cafe in Big Bear City shows a rosy-cheeked girl with long eyelashes about to bite into a steaming hamburger.

“Let’s have a burger, baby,” she says.

The mural will be instantly recognizable to some. It’s the work of an LA-based street artist known as Sand One. She has painted a series of cheeky young women on walls around the world, and her work has gained her a sizable cult following. In early January, Sand took her first trip to Big Bear and left one of her signature paintings behind.

Chuck Norton, whose wife Brenda is one of the cafe’s owners, was cooking burgers in the kitchen last month when Sand approached him with the idea. “She just walked in here one afternoon and asked if she could do a painting on the side of the building,” Norton said. “She said everywhere she goes she likes to leave her mark.”

It’s true. The 23-year-old artist started painting murals as a teenager. In the years since, she has embellished walls from Chicago to Puerto Rico to Guatemala to Miami with spray-painted compositions.

“This is when I feel alive—painting,” the gregarious artist said in a phone interview from her LA studio.

In the male-dominated world of street art, Sand makes herself stand out with ultra-feminine images. Don’t let the frills fool you.

“You see these big walls with eyelashes and cupcakes, but I paint like a man,” Sand said. “I can paint big walls. Don’t help me, don’t touch me, don’t lift my ladder, I bring my own equipment.”

All of Sand’s paintings feature one of the many, stylized characters known as “dolls” she created. The girl with the fang-toothed smile on the side of the Broadway Cafe is a character Sand calls Wolfy.

“Each doll has a story. Each one relates to a girl that’s somewhere out there,” Sand said. She added she likes using the dolls as her subject because, “Women can morph into anything, we’re easy to adapt.”

Wolfy, for example, is cute, but she can also be ferocious, Sand said. She joked that Wolfy will be tough enough to handle Big Bear’s cold climate.

Recently, the dolls have gained even more popularity and Sand’s business has grown. The artist, who has nearly 40,000 followers admiring her work on Instagram, started taking more custom orders for small paintings and also launched a clothing line. The attention from fans has kept her busy.

“I been painting nonstop for like three months and I haven’t left my studio,” Sand said. “I wanted to get away from LA. I live downtown and it’s always super crazy, so I was like, ‘you know what? I’m going to Big Bear.’”

She recruited her mom, her siblings and a cousin to join her on the impromptu mountain getaway. She said she assured her family the trip would be strictly for relaxation.

“They were like, ‘You’re not painting right?’ But I needed to tell people I was there,” Sand said. She had taken note of the temptingly blank, cream-colored wall on the side of the Broadway Cafe. On her last day in town she hopped out of the car and told her family, “Just give me 30 minutes!” She had secretly packed her supply of spray paint.

Sand said it’s not just any business that lets her start painting—she estimates for every 20 businesses she approaches, only three will agree to let her adorn the walls.

When she came to Norton with the idea, he said he called around and checked with everyone he could think of, including the cafe’s neighboring businesses, to ask if a mural would bother them. He said everyone seemed to be in favor.

“So far, the reaction has all been positive,” Norton said. He added that he has even had a few customers come in for a burger just because Wolfy’s sly grin caught their attention.

Norton said there is some maintenance planned for the cafe later this year. There’s a chance the owners may need to repaint the cafe’s exterior walls and cover up the mural.

“I told (Sand) she could come back if we do maintenance,” Norton said.

Sand said she’ll be ready anytime.

Read this story on the Big Bear Grizzly