Dings Mural 1998

This was the first mural I had ever done, and seeing it is about 110ft long, you will understand that I felt a little daunted with the prospect of tackling this project. It had major problems: The wall is backed up to soil, so salt deposits would leak through and destroy the paint work. The brick had a very hard shiny glaze which needed to be removed (thankfully not by me), before any paint could adhere to the surface. To be honest with you I was not keen, but I was encouraged by Greg Durham (another member of Pip'n'Jay Church) to do the project.

This certainly was a team effort: Various members of the Dings community and Pips brought this whole thing into reality. First the surface had to be treated to remove the salt deposits, and then a industrial pin gun was used to remove the glaze. I then gridded up the area, and did a black outline for the illustration, marked where the colours needed to go, and then the children from the Dings painted it all in. I certainly learnt so much from doing this, which became useful for the projects that were to follow.

The idea behind the painting was to show a reflection of the scene opposite, but with the park full of people (with some local characters), doing all sort of activities. We have people with hot air balloons, selling food, cycling, flying a kite, and playing in the Pip'n'Jay bus. I did two designs for the mural, but I knew that the community would choose this design over the other one!

In the end, despite a few salt deposits damaging the surface, even after all this time it does not look too bad. I was also pleased that as a result of these efforts that more money was pumped into park, so that a playground was created, as well as this lovely sign you can see in this picture.

I think my shirt is as colourful as the mural

This is a newspaper clipping from the Bristol Evening Post giving more information about the project. As well as this we were also interviewed by Radio Bristol. All I can remember about that is that I was incredibly nervous!:)