Panoramic Mural for Children's Library
Reading in Edinburgh Gardens was an 8 metre panoramic mural I designed and hand-painted.
It was part of a rotating exhibition program in the foyer of a library and community hub – a very popular space for the local young families.
The mural was visible 13 July — 12 September, 2018
Bargoonga Nganjin – Fitzroy North Library
182/186 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North VIC 3068
It was Highly Commended in the site specific / mural category of the 2018/2019 Illustrator’s Australia Awards.
Client: Yarra Libraries / City of Yarra
Year: 2018
Medium: Pen and ink preparatory sketches, Photoshop collages of sketches as mockups to scale, acrylic paint for final mural.
Context: Mural design & installation for busy public building including a library, council services, and community rooms.
Brief: A bustling community hub that also houses a popular children’s storytime program in the library within the building. The foyer space, which looks through a glass window into the children’s library, hosts a rotating exhibition program. I chose to pitch a mural that would appeal to children and their families.
Approach: I spent five days painting on site, working from sketches and designs I prepared both in Edinburgh Gardens, and in my studio, over the previous few months.
Design considerations
This temporary mural was designed specifically for this space, with a panoramic view of the nearby Edinburgh Gardens. By using a reduced and partly abstracted visual style space is left for the viewer to imagine and fill in the details. It allows viewers to forget the wintery gardens until spring!
One of my aims was to create something that the children will feel is an extension of the imaginary worlds in the books they explore. The horizon level is at the average eye-line of young people, meaning that if your eye level is at child height, the resulting perspective will make you feel even more a part of the panorama.
The loose linework is a result of re-drawing selected sketches out of hundreds made in and of the gardens over the past few months. By contrast, the colour has sharp, clear edges (but loose washes within the defined areas).
Combining all of these techniques allowed me to replicate my studio illustration style, which comprises traditional ink pens, watercolours, and digital collage.
Results: During the week I spent painting on site, the school holiday crowd frequently sat with their children to watch me work, and check on my progress multiple times in the week. Library staff reported to me that locals loved the mural and hoped it could stay for longer—but it was time for the next artist to have a turn! Producing a work at this scale taught me that my linework scales up beautifully, and led to other commissions for future works at a similar scale and style.