Mazey Day Wall Painting.

Over the Golowan Festival weekend in Penzance, i was asked to help out my friend John Mackenzie to paint a wall, with a group of under 16's that he's been working with recently. John works for Addaction http://www.addaction.org.uk/ which is a UK based drug and alcohol treatment charity. The wall that we were going to paint, was outside the Addaction office in the Green Market Car Park in Penzance. I've worked with John before on other public art projects, and it's always great fun helping the young people translate their ideas onto a larger scale.

John had already been running some workshops with the group to generate ideas, and give them an introduction to some basics in spray painting. Their idea was to paint a large brain, and fill it with words that related to the effects that smoking marajuana has on the brain. We helped them draw the basic outline of the brain and the words a couple of days before the painting day.

On the day of painting, which was on Mazey Day itself, we used the wall around the corner from the brain mural as a public opinion wall. Before the young people arrived to help with painting, we sectioned the other wall up into blocks of colour, so that members of the public could have a go at spraying words about what they thought of the mural. This worked out pretty well, and everybody that had a go at painting really enjoyed themselves, and loved the fact that they were involved in painting a mural. Here's some more photos documenting the days progress.

All in all, everybody involved had a great day, and a bright, fun and colourful piece of work was produced by a very enthusiastic group of young people, and some fantastic members of the public. Big thanks to John Mackenzie, Carol Ashe and everyone else who got involved. Let's see if we can brighten some more walls up around Penzance!

My A'th Kar NQY Update.

So, since we last spoke, the My A'th Kar NQY mural project has taken a few twists and turns! As you can see from the photo of me above, the Burger King mural got a lovely new paint job but after some great campaigning by the local community and the media, BK has kindly offered the project £3000 to recreate the mural somewhere else in Newquay. So we're now on the look out for a suitable site to reproduce our mural again!

While we're looking for a new site for the BK mural, we've been hard at work on the mural for the old Newquay Bus Station site. We spent a week last half term painting 70 panels for the site, with the help of some very willing and able local volunteers.

We had a mammoth task on our hands, paint 70 panels in 5 days with gloss paint! My very good friend, Natalie Smith, took time out from here studying in London to lend an invaluable helping hand, and Sarah Pym from RIO (Real Ideas Organisation) cleared her schedule for the week to get stuck in with us on the creative battlefront!

Over the course of the 5 days, we had between 40 - 50 volunteers come along to participate in creating a very public piece of artwork to share with the community. Everybody who came along were very focused on the task at hand, but still managed to have a bit of fun and enjoy themselves in a very relaxed and friendly creative working environment!

I can safely say that this project was one of the most intense, but ultimately the most fun and rewarding project that i've worked on for a while! There was a lot of pressure to organise and finish the job on such a tight schedule, but everybody involved pulled together and worked tirelessly to get the job done!

Gloss paint is bugger to paint with, especially on such a scale as this, and working with younger people who are prone to getting paint all over themselves! We had to put a lot of measures in place to make sure that the kids weren't going home to their parents covered in gloss paint!

As the week progressed, the paint pile just kept on growing and growing! Mixing all the colours for the panels was great fun. We went through a few tins of red, blue, yellow and white paint in order to achieve the desired effect!

Logistically this was a nightmare too, as we had to keep moving panels in and out of the school hall we were using in order to make sure each one had been drawn on and had 2 coats applied to it! But with a bit of jiggery pokery, we managed this rather large balancing act with minimum hassle!

The project also proved to be a great way to pass on handy tips on painting techniques to some very budding young artists! Lets just hope we inspired a few of the next generation to follow in our creative footsteps.

A massive thank you to everyone who came along and did such a wonderful job of painting, and for donating their valuable time to this project. Thanks also to Natalie Smith, Sarah Pym, Rhona Gardener & Excess Energy, and David Chadwick. I'd like to extend a big thank you to David Jones and i-Site, the company who provided us with the panels, and who installed them at the bus station site for us.

The panels are now all up and in position, so get yourselves down to Newquay to have a little look. Eventually there will be a little trial to follow around Newquay to the various murals with have been, and will be completed. More details of this will be released shortly, so keep your eyes peeled!

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!