Finally Finished A Massive Painting!

After many delays and hold ups, myself and Kasha Miller put the finishing touches to the My A'th Kar NQY mural in Newquay town centre last Friday! It's been a long old slog, with lots of obstacles being thrown in our way, but we finally finished!

Big thanks need to go out to my band of merry helpers who have braved the elements with me, to help produce this awesome piece of public art work! Drum roll please...... big love to Kasha Miller, Stevan Hyde, Becky Bryne, Andy Weir, Jourdan Brewer, Leigh Campion, Leanne Smale, David Britton and Chelsea.

We've had some late nights, some minor setbacks, and freezing conditions, but from the original idea of the project from the core group of youngsters (Kasha, Stevan, Becky, Jourdan and Spryo and Matt Casey who unfortunately didn't participate!) it's been a bit of a journey and mammoth effort to bring this mural to completion.

Safe to say, it has been very successful and extremely well received by the local people of Newquay. The amount of positive comments about the artwork and the message that it's originators wanted to say has been fantastic to say the least!

So many people have commented on how Newquay needs positive messages to lift it out of the general publics perception, that it is a destination for visitors with a lack of respect, and who don't drink responsibly. Everyone has said that they would like to see more of this kind of work to brighten up their home town, and to get a message across.

We have a new site at Newquay Police Station, which i have mentioned before, where we can hopefully carry on spreading a positive message about the town from the mouths of it's younger generation.

Myself and Tom Cowles from Excess Energy went to meet Sgt. Bob Murray yesterday to see which part of the station we have been allocated to decorate. It is a massive space, one that i hadn't anticipated, but it will look amazing once the decorated panels of artwork have been installed!

Me and the gang are going to be spending the next 2 weeks before Christmas getting as much painting done as possible, in order to get it up and into the public eye as soon as possible. It's an amazing opportunity for myself and the group to produce a piece of public art on a very unlikely building. How many other people do you know who have painted a Police Station without being nicked? I'll let you know how it goes, either from home or from a cell!

My A'th Kar NQY - Phase Four, 'Back In Action'!

After a 6 week break, i'm 'Back In Action' on the My A'th Kar NQY Public Art Project. Yesterday was my first day back on the mural after being a full time carer for my missus after she had a hip operation. My first day back on the job just so happened to be one of the wettest Newquay has had this year, it was belting it down! Lucky enough, the site is undercover, but this didn't stop the rain from coming in sideways at me!

The main job that needed to be done yesterday, was to start drawing out the figures that will eventually populate the landscape of the mural, and the text that will evoke the voice of the young people of Newquay. I was very surprised to see that there was only one piece of 'unofficial' graffiti which had appeared over the last 6 weeks! Someone had written their name onto the sign post, and didn't really do a very good job of it.

The only other marks on the wall looked like someone had gone to the toilet on it, but upon further inspection found that someone had smashed a bottle of beer against it, which i found out by sitting in the broken glass while i was drawing! So with an ass full of glass, and smelling like a brewery, i proceeded with the drawing that needed to be done.

Everything apart from a couple of figures, is now in place for Saturdays painting session. The group of young people will be painting in the silhouetted figures, and around the text to make it stand out. This is of course weather permitting, as the country seems to be at the mercy of snow at the moment. It's been snowing on and off all day in Cornwall, but none of it has been sticking around by us! I hope people turn up on Saturday, but to be fair, this really isn't the weather to painting murals in!

Delays To The Planned Schedule.

So, the My A'th Kar NQY Public Art Project has had a brief break due to some personal commitments that i had to attend to. I've been looking after my partner Melissa for the last 6 weeks, as she had to have a hip operation. It was pretty heavy surgery on her leg and hip, and i had to be her full time carer and look after. Have a look at the photo of her x-ray below!

I did a little design recently for a Christmas Card Competition for Shelter Box, my submission is below. It was a bit of a rush job, but i kind of like the image!

I've only just recently had chance to sort out my studio space too! I've been in there for about 4 months, but haven't had a chance to unpack things. I had to sort it out last week, as we had a new addition to the space in the shape of top photographer, Adam Gibbard! So the studio has now had all my crap properly unpacked into it and put away!

I'm now ready to get back onto the My A'th Kar NQY project, to take it to the conclusion of Phase 1, with Phase 2 hot on it's heels! We've been given a some wall space at Newquay Police Station to do another mural. I've done a design for it (below), but i think it will need a bit of redesigning, due to the allocated wall!

One problem we're going to encounter, is the fact that the wall space is 3 floors off the ground. The solution will be to produce the art work on large boards away from the site, and then attatch them to the building once finished.

We've got a couple of painting sessions coming up this week on the Burger King mural, in order to get it finished asap. It's going to be a bit nippy, but at least i'll have a warm top lip as i'm growing a moustache for the whole of November for the 'Movember' campaign. It's to help raise awareness about Prostate Cancer in men, and is a very worth will cause. If you feel like donating some money for a good cause while i look a bit creepy, then go here > http://uk.movember.com/mospace/354820/

Until the next time!

My A'th Kar NQY - Phase Three, A Spanner In The Works!

So after our massive painting session, it was back to painting on the wall on my own. It's a pretty massive space to tackle by yourself, but it's nice to just crack on sometimes and plug your MP3 player in and blast out some music to help you work! It's also a way to avoid talking to the general public too when you have your headphones in! Now, i'm not saying i don't like the general public, it's just that they can hinder your progress by asking very stupid questions when you're working out in public!

The amount of people that came up to me while i was painting on the wall and asked me 'What you doing?' was unbelievable!

So, with the distractions of the daft general public foiled by the use of noise cancelling headphones, it was time to crack on and get the wall ready for yet another mass painting session. To get it to the right state, i needed to have all of the colour painted onto the wall, and 2 coats of it too. To help me with this tall order, i was lucky to have the help of another artist form Newquay called Chelsea. She had kindly volunteered to help out, so that she could gain some experience from working on a public art project on such a large scale.

For a couple of days, myself and Chelsea plodded on, colouring in the spaces and trying to stay within the lines! The day then arrived for the next painting session, everything was in place, and i was about to draw out the silhoutted figures for the arriving gang to paint.

We then encountered a slight hiccup in the project, that delayed us for a couple of days. Then everything got back on track and we managed to get the mural to what was almost a completed state, which can be seen in the photo below.

We've also been given another site to work on, at the local police station, which will be very interesting! I'm taking a little break from the project for some personal reasons, but will be back asap to crack on with a fantastic project!

My A'th Kar NQY - Phase Two, Painting By Numbers.

So Phase 2 of the mural involved a mass painting by numbers session with a larger group of youngsters to help me than i expected! The main core of the group that i'd been working with consisted of about 5-6 people, but i was expecting a few more to turn up...... but i wasn't prepared for nearly 20!

With every body wanting to help out with the painting, i had to co ordinate everyone to make sure they all had a brush, were all in a position to paint, and that they all had the right colour paint for their particular part of the wall! I managed to mix the desired colours correctly, and under immense pressure!

Directing this group of children, teenagers and artists was great fun, and i think everyone involved in this short painting session really enjoyed themselves! It got a bit hectic and very messy to some extent, but the amount and quality of creativity achieved in such a short space of time was fantastic!

The next group painting session was scheduled to take place a week later, but we encountered a small problem which will become apparent in the following Blogs!

So until then, here's another one of the press shots. All of the publicity has been co ordinated by the lovely Rhona Gardiner and Fiona Egglestone at Excess Energy in Newquay.

My A'th Kar NQY - Phase One

Ok, time to pick up the slack on the Blog! It's been a pretty full on couple of months regarding the My A'th Kar NQY project i've been working on, but Phase One of the mural painting part of the project has got underway. After a couple of photo opportunities with the local press (see cheesy photo above), I spent a good few days preparing the wall and white washing it, in readiness for drawing out the design.

Somehow, i've got to try and recreate the above design which was finally reached after weeks of workshops with the the group of youngsters. This was the initial design i came up with, which was passed by the local Council and Burger King.


Drawing out the design was very difficult, especially as the surface of the wall was made of brick! It was quite a large area, and took me a couple of days in total . It was made some what easier with the scaffold tower i was kindly lent by my mate Simon Taylor, who is one of the main organisers of The Masked Ball.

I think i must have gone through a least 20 pencils just sketching out the design, and then used a few marker pens to make sure it could be seen by the helpers who i was expecting to muck in and help me paint! I was looking forward to the help, as my wrist was feeling a bit knackered from the vibrations of drawing on a brick wall!

I had to improvise a bit too during the drawing process, due to the fact that i'd forgotten about the rather large Newquay Town Council notice board that is awkwardly positioned infront of the wall! I just had to jiggle things about a bit, in order for the composition of the mural to work.


So finally, with a very shaky wrist and a touch of snow blindness from staring at a white wall for so long, the design was up on the wall. Next up was Phase Two, which involved a painting by numbers session with a bigger group of youngsters than i expected!

Akil The MC / Jurassic 5

My mate Charlie Quinn who has been promoting some great Hip Hop acts in Cornwall lately, asked me to do another poster for one of these big names. This time it was for a gig by Akil the MC who is one fifth of the mighty Jurassic 5. I love doing these posters, and this one was great fun to do. Here's a few photos of how it came about!

My A'th Kar NQY.

So the workshops have been progressing for the My A'th Kar NQY public art project. We've now moved venue to an amazing space at the Chester Road Youth Centre in Newquay. Ideas for designs for murals have been coming thick and fast, and we even have a very possible site to start working on.

We've been developing an idea about using life size silhouettes of people on the wall. There's a whole theme about light and dark and opposites running throught the ideas at the moment. I've been getting the guys to use spray cans and stencils for a quick and easy way of producing ideas as images.

Things seem to be progressing nicely, and we now have a site to work on at Burger King in Newquay on 2 massive walls! Big thanks to James Curtis for all his help and support. More news and photos as things develop.

Private Commission.

I was recently asked to do a private commission for someone, which was to be a present for their partners birthday. They specifically asked for a painting of Godrevy Lighthouse, and if possible, St. Ives Bay too. I managed to squeeze both of these landmarks into the design for the final piece, with a bit of creative license! Here's a series of photos showing it's development.