The Park
Earlier this year I was approached by UPfest to work with The Park Centre to design and facilitate a series of workshops for a group of learners to gather ideas for a new mural in the courtyard area. The Park has recently undergone a huge transformation with a new purpose built centre replacing the very old and tired school building from which it has moved. The new cafe area opens out onto a large courtyard area that lies between the new build and very large gym - 6 metres x 20 metres to be exact… and this would be the canvas for the mural!
Once the workshops had concluded, I set about creating two different designs based on the thoughts, ideas and discussions I shared with the young people; the mural had to read ‘THE PARK’, to have a wide and varied range of colours in it, and it had to represent inclusivity and community.
The first design I created was based on the current logo that the Park uses - a graphic ‘P’ made up of colourful right angle triangles. Instead of using triangles to build a series of letters spelling out PARK, I left the letters as negative space and used triangles to create a patterned background with PARK punched out.
Digital mock up of triangles design
Digital mock up of Acerone style design
The second design I created was based on a recent lettering style I have been developing in my own street based paintings that is influenced by Bauhaus typefaces that were popular in the 1970’s. I begin with very simple geometric shapes: circles, squares and triangles to build bold, chunky letters and then add vertical stripes to one half of each letter. The individual letters are arranged so that parts of them overlap and begin to look like a logo. Another layer is created and offset acting as a drop shadow and a final rainbow spectrum outline layer offset in the opposite direction.
Both designs were then displayed in the Park Cafe for 2 weeks over the Easter holidays and the public asked to vote for their preferred image. This approach was very useful in engaging the wider public into the project as it got many regular users of the centre talking about the project and giving them a chance to have a say on which direction the artwork would take.
With the Easter break over, I collected 60 cans of spray paint from Upfest and began a three day painting marathon to scale up an A4 digital design into a 6 meter high mural!
Completed mural
A huge thanks to Louise and all of the staff at The Park, all of the students and young people I worked with and learned so much from, and Steve and the volunteers at Upfest for coordinating what for me, was a perfect job.
If you have an internal or external wall that needs brightening up with a mural that represents your organisations core values, please get in touch!