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Mural Process - Sea Library
Mural commissioned by Woodingdean Primary School, Brighton & Hove
Completed July 2021
This mural was painted in a the new library area of a primary school which was going to be sea themed. My idea was to create lots of different worlds that the children could walk through, from deep sea to coral reefs. The mural is in the corridor area, just down from where all the books and reading area is. So when coming into the library, or walking to their next class the kids and the staff get to walk through a collaboration between the mural and the fish that the children painted hanging from the ceiling.
DESIGN
At first, I started to design this drawing by hand and not using photographic reference, but I soon realised that I have not really ever drawn or painted an under water scene, which is a bit funny when you're just about to get paid a load of money to do a mural that'll be there for 30 yrs or so. Either way - I had belief that I could do it! It couldn't be much harder than the other things I've painted before. This was my first actually BIG mural that I was getting paid properly for. It took me a really long time pricing the whole thing up as it was completely new. But in the end, it turned out the amount of days it took was exactly right (25 days).
So I started by looking on Pinterest as I always do with any creative project and spent hours getting together a mood board of different images of fish and coral and sealife. After a while, the design started to come together. It took lots of brain ache and worry but after trial and error it started to work. After making the rough design, I got it checked, and then put it into the proper mock up. The reason it looks very perfect and measured is because it literally is. The lines are all exactly to size which now I do not do because it's not necessary. But because I had no idea how to price it at the time, I measured it properly which helped me to get the price correct.
You might also notice that the design for the doors is different to the main mural - the reason is in a school / building that the public use you have to make it so its obvious where the doors are otherwise people (especially with visual impairment) might think its a wall and not be able to get out in a fire etc.
FINISHED MURAL
THE BASE LAYER
The first step of this mural was to get the walls the right colour. When finding ways to make the mural cheaper, the school staff came in to help with the base layer. The paint was ordered in, and I came in and painted lines across the walls where the different layers of colour would be painted. As you can see there are 4 different blues. So on my first day of painting, the background was already ready to go.
PAINTING
I stared off with the most complicated bit of the mural which was the coral reef in the corner. I specifically placed the coral reef in the corner because it is the spot that people will look directly at when they are walking from each end of the corridor, so it needed to be the most beautiful part. I sketched out the shapes of the coral and the fish in a watery glaze, and then started to fill in with opaque colour.
IMPORTANT DETAILS
When I was a child one of the things I did with my family was watch David Attenborough documentaries, and my favourite thing ever (and it still is) is looking at the weird deep sea creatures. The ones I added to the wall here are called Comb Jellies and have amazing colourful strings of light that go down their body. To imitate this in the mural, I bought some multicoloured metallic paper that changed colour when looking at it from different angles. I cut it up into tiny strips and stuck them in rows down the lines of the Comb Jellies. Another detail that I added was using shiny gloss over the top of the jellies so when you walked past or touched them they would feel different to the rest of the wall. This was something I also used on the eyes of the fish and the eel.
INVOLVING THE CHILDREN

One part of the brief was that they wanted some sea life hanging from the ceiling, and instead of me making these, I thought it would be fun for the kids to get involved in true primary school spirit. So I made a few simple fish shape designs, which were cut by another local school (I cant remember which one now but pretty sure it was Longhill High School) and then each class was given a different colour to paint in. As you can see from the photos the fish have been purposefully ordered around the library so that they slowly change colour. For example as we get closer to the deep sea area, they become more blue and silver, and in other areas they are much more bright and warm colours.
FINAL PHOTOS
In total the mural took 25 days to paint. There was really a lot of detail in this, especially with the coral reef and the shiny paper on the Comb Jellies. But because people are going to be so close up to the mural every day, it was important to me that it looks good close up. When painting murals on buildings out doors its not such an issue because they are just walking past. But this indoor one needed to look really good, and I think it was work spending the time on the make it look great!
