Fresh Creative Co. was commissioned by Plasmarl Primary School to help design and paint a mural in the outdoor learning area in the playground.
The brief was to include elements of nature and a sporting theme because the school is in such close proximity to the Liberty stadium and football and rugby are very popular amongst the young people.
Plasmarl is a small and happy school and they are extremely proud of all that goes on there. They have high expectations of the children, both educationally and socially.
We wanted the young people to help with the design and painting while also finishing with a mural painted to a high standard.
PROCESS
We first ran a design session with the young people to get them thinking about themes and what they wanted to see in the mural.
Football and Rugby were the 2 main choices followed by element of nature.
We decided that for the background we would use the welsh valleys and country side as this would be nice and bright.
We then placed macro images of different elements on top to create a scene.
The school already had the cartoon characters, which were used on their website, so this was a simple task to replicate them on the wall.
We also included an image of the school shield. This was a school emblem which featured images of Morris Castle (also known as Castle Graig) situated off Trewyddfa Road in the Trewyddfa area of Swansea, South Wales. It was built between 1768 and 1774 on behalf of Sir John Morris to house the families of workers at his industrial enterprises (mainly the copper works of Landore)
The remains of the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks also appear. Originally developed by Vivian & Sons, it consists of a core Grade II listed building and additional Grade II listed structures on a 12 acres (4.9 ha) site, on the banks of the River Tawe in Hafod, Swansea.
The shield also contains the iconic Swansea swan.
We were also asked to include an urban element to the design so we decided that a word written in a graffiti style would be a great way to make the mural more stylized.
In the workshop with the young people we gave them some basic pointers on the history and techniques involved with graffiti, they then helped us mark out Plasmarl in a graffiti style.
The mural was to be situated in one of the cages under the school in the playground so we tried to keep the colours bright and vibrant to avoid making the space too dark.
We prepared the area by masking taping off any areas to avoid over spray form the spray paint. We then filled any holes and sanded that back.
We then marked up the design to make it easier for the young people to paint.
We split the young people into two groups with one group was helping with the background whilst the other group helped fill in the different elements and later this was rotated so all the young people got the opportunity to paint different things.
FINISHED PIECES
The Fresh Murals Co team had a great time at Plasmarl primary School painting the mural for their outdoor learning area.
The space is planned for a full makeover with new flooring and seating so with the new graffiti mural the young people should be able to enjoy what was once a dark and unused area.
