The Carseldine Village Project was one of the largest physical murals I have created. The project was initiated in September 2021 with quotes requests and completed in January 2022 amidst La Nina weather events.
In late 2020, I worked with the Queensland Government Engagement Officer and Aspley State High School to run a number of workshops with the art students. The project aim was to have the students design a wrap for the energy boxes located throughout the new Carseldine Village community (located behind the school). I acted as the project 'in between'. I helped the students develop their ideas and designed a printable wrap to be installed.
The Energex wraps added energy and ownership to the space.
A few months after this project, Carseldine Village requested a quote to paint a mural on the side of a terrace house facing Beams Road, Carseldine. The house was at the entrance of the estate. After the quote was approved, I received a brief for the mural - to welcome people to the precinct. It was to connect to country and community. It was to be welcoming and uplifting. I visited the site and sat with the home owners to ask them what they'd like to see on the side of their home.
Although the building was under construction, I did a site visit and looked at possible lift access, safety issues and re-measured all the walls to be painted.
After a few weeks of research and concept development, I provided a number of proofs for the mural design.
This is one of the many design ideas I presented.
After a few weeks of back-and-fourth with the client we refined the design to a mural they were 100% happy with:
The squares at the base of the design are the paint swatched I needed to order.
I booked the painting week with the site foreman. I booked my two assistants. I booked the boom lift. I ordered the paint and prepped the materials. I checked the weather for the week everyday leading up to paint week.
The first day on site I painted a fire resistant undercoat. Once that had dried (almost instantly), I painted the splashes of colour for the background.
That night I projected up the graphics. They were too big to create stencils. I chalked up the design ready to be painted the next day.
Day two I had my two assistants on site helping. Their job was to paint dark blue. All the chalk marks were on the walls, so it was like painting a giant colouring in. I worked up high on the boom lift (yes, thats me white-knuckling it up there) while the boys worked on the ground.
Day 3 we worked through to about 2pm when a huge storm started to roll over. I could see the lightening in the background while up on the boom lift. So I came down and we frantically packed up the site for the weekend. It was hard to leave the mural. We only had about two hours of work remaining on the project.
Day 4 (after the weekend) I popped out with another assistant to finish off the mural. The home owners and client were on site to take photos and have a chat. Everyone was very happy with the outcome, including myself.
You can currently see this mural on Beams Road, Carseldine. Blow it a kiss for me...
And of course we were time lapsed...
What I loved about this mural... - Working with Sam from Qld Government. - The design: it is both feminine and masculine. It has a connection to place and it is eye catching without being too busy - The location
What was difficult about this mural...
- The weather. We painted this in the middle of a heatwave. I think we all ended up with heat stroke and sun burn.
- Finding assistants. This was in the middle of a pretty bad Covid outbreak and my normally large pool of artists were all sick or quarantined. - Accessability. There was one small area of about 2 x 2m that the boom lift couldn't reach and we couldn't access with a ladder (due to the ground slope). So I had to paint this part of the wall with a brush on a stick. It's a huge abdominal workout!
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