Collaborative Mural & Workshop with West Hatch School

Last week Graffiti Life where invited to West Hatch School in Essex to make the students vision a reality.

Recently the West Hatch School (in conjunction with the School Voice council) held a competition for the students to produce creative ideas for a mural, which would be painted on a prominent wall of their school. The outlines of the competition where simple: to visually represent the schools maxims; determined and persevere, respectful, considerate, ready to achieve, proud and responsible. The school had a flurry of entries and chose the winning design – a peacock with its tail feathers representing each of the school’s Houses.

Once we had received the winning entry, we needed to prepare the design for painting. Due to spray paint being a large medium, very occasionally a design can be too highly detailed or too dense to be able to translate via spray can. Therefore with this design we simple converted it to a ‘paint ready’ version, which the pupils could help us finish.

The actual painting of the wall took a day complete: with the first half of the day comprising of our graffiti artists sketching up the design and getting ready to give the pupils a go. After lunch we then invited the 12 Head of House’s down to the playground to help us complete the mural they had designed.

We began by teaching the pupils the tricks and techniques of spray painting – showing them how to use a spray can and giving them a few pointers on can control. Once the workshop was complete and the pupils were confident enough with the spray cans, we showed them the stencils of their House badges we had made earlier (Blue Peter eat your heart out!!). The pupils’ then spray painted their own House badge on the peacock – giving it its final touch!
This activity was a great way to communicate the schools ethos to the students and drive the message home…while decorating the school!

If you feel your walls could do with some attention or have a message you would like to convey, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of the team today!