Fantazy Mural painted with kids of Pennycross Primary School in Plymouth

Past summer I had a great opportunity to try something I never did before, but always wanted to try: paint the mural.

Initially project sounded quite abstract:  paint something nice at the back fence of the school yard and get kids involved. I am sure anybody on my place would not expect to see the great result if the 4 years old kids will paint the mural.

The solution was easy: kids will do the sketches and I will finish it nicely and tidy. Referring to my previous experience working with children I was sure that the group paintings united with the subject is the best option. Kids were supposed to invent fantasy animals that do not exist in the real world.   As an example I prepared a few sketches to give them a better Idea what I expect to see.

I was surprised with the excellent results, I got so many interesting creatures, some of them truly aliens, others - amazingly abstracted real animals (the black-orange Stripy supposed to be the tiger)

After I had all sketches on hand it was a time for me as for artist to bring them all to the harmonical conclusion in terms of composition, shapes, colours and general style.

The surface of the fence is very uneven, with the cross beams. Initially I imagined my creatures seating on them like on the tree branches, but I rejected this idea on a later stage because I did not want horizontal beams to be even more visible. Finally I picked up the style, slightly angular and awkward, but perfectly disguising imperfectness of the surface.

I had 2 working days (16 hours) to complete the painting and cover it with varnish. I found this timetable very tight. Enormous amount of time, I would say about 3 hours I spent on cleaning the surface of the fence with sand paper from the layers of green moss. You keep it in mind when planning work, but do not expect how long it really can take and how physically tiring it would be.

For my mural I picked up small paint testers for internal works, blue background paint for outside works and the transparent varnish to cover the completed painting. Be careful then buying varnish, make sure it is getting touch dry within 20-30 min; otherwise you are risking getting lots of dust stuck to your mural!


More works by artist Diana Davydova on www.dianadavydova.co.uk