15TH MAY 2012
After our taster session in the days previous, we noted that the effect of spray painting on the corrugated metal surface gave a much cleaner look and had greater impact than the other brush painted pieces on the wall. The only problem being that only a small amount of the group had ever picked up a spray can before. We decided to have a spray paint tester session today where we opened out large boxes and stuck them together to make a large surface on which to paint on. Those who had sprayed before helped the others and I think we all definately showed signs of improvement by the end of it. Here are some of our efforts.

13TH MAY 2012
More great news. A friends of Alisons, Jane Wright who is a photographer has offered us her services to document the mural process.
http://www.janewrightphotography.com/

13TH MAY 2012
Fantastic days painting and a great effort by all involved. Everyone found it invaluable to have this practise session at the mural site to experiment with paint application and colours etc. The boys created some great spray painted pieces and Maddy really got stuck in and neglected the brush, preferring to apply the paint with her hands instead. It was really useful to see which paints and techniques worked and which weren't as successful.
Also had varying degrees of helpful feedback from the public who walked past, most of whom were really enthusiastic. It was a great boost to hear from those who liked what we were doing even in these early stages of practise painting.

12TH MAY 2012
We finally have a date! Today we have a meeting (once again, at strategically chosen bar) and agree on the dates for the mural to be created. We shall officially be getting the paint on the wall the week commencing 20th August 2012. Our aim is to work solidly for 2 weeks so we can hit it hard and get it looking really great.
We also decided that tomorrow (13th May) will be the day we go down to the mural site and have a practise with the paints we already own, so we can really get an idea of what the surface is like to paint on.

8TH MAY 2012
Today we roll out a mahoosive sheet of paper and all set about doodling our ideas down. This is a great time to test out composition and to see how people's different work can interact together. We now have some basic ideas down and the bones of some kind of structure to the piece! Things are slowly coming together and it really feels like we're getting somewhere.

Nathan Boden

Alana Pope

Myles Allensen

Alison Rattigan

Bagder: Luke St-Clair Pedroza, Cat: Alison Rattigan

Myles Hamilton

Alix Verity

Liane Green

Badger: Luke St-Clair Pedroza, Foliage: Alana Pope

Jack Tottie

Alix Verity

Charli Barnett

30TH MARCH 2012
Great success, pre-planning application has been submitted with our cake sale money and we discover that there is potential for William Sinclairs (company who own the warehouse) to substantially help us with our funding. Plans are now in place to get a practise session sorted for over the holidays.

17TH MARCH 2012
Cake sale at mural site to raise funds for the building regulations application. Although the weather wasn't fully on our side, we still made a respectable amount! Cake sale was complete with, butterfly cakes, rice crispie cakes, cookies, Mothers Day cards made my Luke, facepainting and Alison's "interesting" Mrs Cropley sweetcorn and tuna cakes! Overall, the sale made us £45, which isn't bad considering cakes were selling for 20p and 50p each.

First 50p!

Tuna & sweetcorn fairy cakes... needless to say Alison took most of these back home with her!

9TH MARCH 2012
We are in constant contact with Kelly, our point of contact from William Sinclairs - the business who owns the warehouse to be painted. Alix and Alison have very productive and helpful meeting with her and are given the OK to have a practise session on the side of the building in the coming months to experiment with paints and themes.

3RD MARCH 2012
Today is our Public Opinion day at the site. The group take it in shifts in teams of 2-3 people to ask the locals using the path and surrounding area their opinions on the site currently and what they would like to see done. All in all an extremely useful day, the general consensus is that everyone asked wants to see the space improved and are positive about our efforts.

Additionally, we now finally have a concrete theme! After much talk amongst the group and with the public we decided to go with a nature themed piece to compliment the local environment next to the canal.

1ST FEBRUARY 2012
We finally get to see where we will hopefully be painting. Worked out that the whole wall is approximately 130 paces long, not taking into account the corrugated surface! We're going to need a lot of paint!

EARLY JANUARY 2012
Group embarks on mural project. Everyone is already excited and enthused to get started and we hold regular meetings (in whichever convenient pub takes our fancy!) to discuss plans of action and delegate tasks to members of the group. Still early days and the boring formalities of paperwork are yet to be started.

Location of site taken from www.william-sinclair.co.uk