This was my first solo school murals project, done last year at Hawes Side Academy. I was approached by their art teacher Wendy Barnes to come in and speak to the children about the Picasso project they were working on in class. They are having a new school built (the other side of this temporary wall) so the idea was to have the children draw (with pastel crayons) pictures based on Picasso’s works and then I would choose a selection of them and recreate those drawings using spray paint on the wall. I went through hundreds of pictures and had too whittle it down to about 12 I think it was! I tried to make sure there was at least one from each year group.
It was a great project to do, as I was painting it as though the children had done it, so it didn’t really matter about trying to be neat! It meant I could practice my freehand spray lines as I went along and Id also got some blending caps to use, something Id never used before on a job. The actual painting took me 5 days in the end and its the largest mural in Blackpool I believe. 104 feet of painting (on a 164 foot wall) It was also my biggest paid job at the time, which was nice!
David Healy AKA Infected By Design
