day 9..........

Now before I launch into what happened today, I shall explain whats been happening since the last entry - well, not alot!

Unfortunately the other lift still hasn't been fixed, which means that we still can't paint. But now there are added complications of the weather - the colder it becomes the longer the paint takes to cure and with the imminent onslaught of christmas shoppers, well, it does not mix well. So not entirely sure when completion will be.

Anyway, back to today. Neither Alison or I had been back to the carpark since before half term and to be honest I wasn't too sure what to expect. The only damage was a piece of paint which had lifted from one of the steps (not sure how this happened but would not be surprised if the paint had not completely cured when it did).

There was no graffiti on it, which was great and the only thing was that it looks grubby, but, I reckon with the love of a steamer alot of that could be removed.

after 3 weeks of pedestrians.

The mural may look grubby but honestly it is to be expected as hundreds of people come through the carpark everyday with dirty, muddy shoes. But even in this state the stairs etc still look far better than in it's original state:

before after

Today was a press day, and unfortunately it has not been completed for the children to see (which is a real shame), despite this they seemed really pleased with what was down so far. Apart from the children, Alison, I, carpark representives and media folk there was Councillor Paul Barrington-King who is the portfolio holder for Environment and street scene. He was extremely positive about the project and said: "By getting the young people involved we can brighten up the stairwells, make them less intimidating,but most importantly this is an intelligent alternative to graffiti."

To read more of Councillor Paul Barrington-King's interview go to:

http://www.kentishtowns.com - and click on tunbridge wells.

day 8...........

A.K.A whingey wednesday or midweek madness -we did appear to have a lot more people having a moan today and the madness was to do with my brain stopping to function!

Overnight there appeared to have been no damage caused, but typically within ten minutes of us painting we recieved our first dose of ignorant adults barging their way through. As I have already mentioned the public were having many a debate between themselves about who was paying for the 'unessential maintenence', was it the reason behind the new sunday charging, how pointless it all was, how typical that only one lift was working and did this paint ever dry. But they only really seem to go on about it when we were in their sight, but no one actually had the nerve to ask us. We would not mind being asked, because the ones that have asked have then become more understanding when they have all the details especially when they find out that they are not paying for it out of their taxes!

As I wrote yesterday, today was a short painting day, we painted the last of the blue into the areas we had primed. This now leaves only a small area of yellow to be filled but it was not enough to worthy opening up a new tin.

The children were really pleased when they saw the photos of the mural so far and thought that it really brightened up the car park. After the school we went back to site for a de-brief, this was to discuss the next stage which is the lift areas. We won't be back to the mural until the week after half term, and by this time hopefully the other lift will be working too which will make the next stage an awful lot easier.

day 7..........

" I want to walk down the stairs, so I will" was roughly what the very determined lady said today as she marched through the wet paint Alison had just laid, then past me painting on the stairs. Rude is an understatement. Well I suppose we were due one as it had been fairly quiet for the last two days.

wanted - owner of footprint!

The aim for today and tomorrow is to paint in all the design on the primed landing and stairs. Luckily the paint delivery arrived just after lunch which meant today we painted in green, red and some of the blue areas.

Tomorrow is a short painting day because we are going back to the school to give the group an update. So I aim to finish off the blue in the morning so again it has plenty of time to cure.

Before we left today we did our usual routine of putting up more safety tape, Alison was determine today after the incident earlier that no one was going to get even close to the mural...

cats cradle!

day 6.......

Refreshed from the weekend I entered the car park with some trepidation - I really wasn't sure what state we were going to find the mural in. But I was pleasantly surprised, most of the safety tape etc was still in place and we only found dirty footprints, no actual damage thank goodness.

Today we couldn't actually do much because we are waiting on a delivery of paint. So I primed the remaining steps and landing and we also second coated some of the yellow. With the yellow we actually use a white grit (safety grip) instead of the black, this is because it does not show up as much in the paint which is much thinner than the other colours. The grit is also much finer and once in the paint seems to stick together more in clumps.

My only concern at this time is about painting the areas in front of the lifts, there is still only one lift working and I do not want to inconvientant the public anymore. One suggestion is to paint the areas when the lifts close at 6pm - I just hope with that that the paint will be dry enough by the morning not to ruin people's shoes.

watch this space......................................

day 5....

Continuous heavy sighing is not going to make the lift come any quicker - fact.

Due to there only being one lift working at the moment people are being inconveniance by five to ten minutes tops - now thats not long folks to be honest. Also the amount of complaints I've heard about having to walk to another staircase (which takes less than two miutes to get to) is astonishing.

We actually worked a shorter day today after the epic day yesterday, and also we wanted the paint to have longer to cure before the weekend took off ( you can walk on it after 24hrs but it doesn't actually fully dry out for a week). Again alot of positive comments, it's nice to come across people who don't moan and like to see things being brightened up. There wasn't much overnight damage either, three cones thrown off carpark and some blue footprints on the sky level. So we just cracked on with the land and sea designs.....

We did have a complaint made to the council about the project today concerning health and safety. i mention this because I wanted to state that during the lead up of the project we have worked alongside a health and safety officer and have made risk assessments.

Anyway, Thought I'd talk in some detail about the actaul process of painting the mural. As I have already said we are using epoxy paint, which is a two part part which when mixed starts to cure in 30 minutes. So after mixing the resin with the pigment we lay it on the floor as quick as possble. We don't paint huge area at a time because we also have to sprinkle on the safety grip, which is a black sandy/gritty substance. Once sprinkled we then brush over that area again to coat the grip in a layer of paint so then it is back to a solid colour again It is quite a time consuming process but has to be done so the public has a non slippery surface to walk on in the end.

It's been a hard five days but it looks great so far and I've only had to change a few things design wise as the days have gone along. Though I am looking forward to having two days off! I love the painting side but because we're doing it in the midst of general life I do tend to feel like an exhibt at a museum sometimes, especially when the public are queueing for the lift.

I will leave you for the weekend with a photo of just some of the empty tins we now have piling up.

day 4.....

So once again we ventured into unknown territory hahahahaha! But honestly today was not such a warzone, although when I arrived I was confronted with the news that just after 8pm the night before the barrier from level four had been thrown off the top of the car park just missing a car - delightful! They had walked over some of the mural too but luckily the paint had hardened enough for minimal amount of damage.

So with the barriers etc back in their rightful places we got to work - repairing some of the damage and continuing down the levels. Again, we recieved the negative comments and actually not many tried to cross the border - woohoo! The highlight did come at lunchtime when a lady 'customer' became very stroppy and decided to complain about everything we had done.

Again today we got alot covered and I think because the design is more obvious to the public now they are more understanding (well some anyway) and we have heard some really nice feedback today.

Alison and I worked later today and because of this we finshed after the lifts had been closed for the night. This meant that we were going to have to do a few trips up and down the other staircase to get all the equipment back - not something I was looking forward to to be honest, well, not until I saw..........................a trolley! Yes we loaded up the good old shopping trolley full of gear and walked it down the carpark levels. Probably not the usual sight we get in a Tunbridge Wells car park at 7 pm.

Our final job for the night was to make sure that everything was secure for the night and that it was yet again obvious to the public not to touch the stairs.

Tomorrow we will be focusing on the far part of the land level and sea stairs with any touch ups that need to be done too.

day 3...............

WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE?

You put up barriers, signs, cones and safety tape and yet there are complete idiots out there who think nothing of it and barge their way through and walk over the wet paint! Then when you confront them they are indifferent.......forget about the behaviour of the youth of today, I think the adults need to be taught some manners. So, because of this insane behaviour there are now a few areas on the mural that need re-touching, which in turn means that those areas will now have to stay out of bounds for longer. Well at least it will give them something to moan about.

Despite these interuptions we still got alot done today. There was no Alison today but Iain and Simon were my lackys for the day - thanks again to you both!! They also doubled up as bodyguards and didn't mind yelling at the idiots trespassing.

I only really had one problem today and that was the yellow paint. As always it is alot thinner than the other colours which meant when it was applied to the 'rise' of the stairs it did run and go very patchy. So another coat will have to be applied. The best way to actually use the yellow I found was to pour the paint out of the tin directly onto the floor and to spread it out with a brush. By doing so meant it wasn't getting spread too thinly and wasn't patchy.

Instead of going into great detail today about what was painted, I will just put up some photos so you can all compare with yesterday's. As you will see we went down onto another two levels and filled in parts of those designs.

Tomorrow I hope to finish off any touch ups on things painted the last two days, second coat yellow and get backgrounds onto sky and land. Then draw and paint in design on sky level in front of lift (which looks like being broken for a while yet and may cause me future problems) and finally some priming will need to be done because I am running out of spaces to paint!

day 2.....

Well by the time I arrived this morning the priming elves had worked their magic - hooray!!! So now it was the turn of painting, upto level four we headed which is the space level. Again we faced a few issues:

1/. the left lift still wasn't working, which actually worked in the project's favour because it meant that we could corden off that particular lift area without any worries. But.......................it also meant that there was an engineer about and he was working in the area in front of the stairs which limited us to what we could paint.

2/. the weather: it was horrendous today and just poured down with rain. These damp conditions mean a longer drying time and that Alison and I also got quite wet because we had to use another stairwell if we needed anything. Occassionally we would use the lift but that leads to another issue........

3/. because of the wet weather it appeared that more people used their cars and unfortunately it had made them stroppy too! Because there was only one lift working and the stairs were out of bounds they became frustrated and unfortunately some instead of going to the other stairs avaliable, decided to ignore signs and safety tape etc and walked up freshly painted stairs!!!!!

Annoyed would be an understatement . Rraaaaggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! is more like it, behaviour like that from adults really frustrates me...............anyhow, we did get some positive reactions from the public too and a few good lucks.

On the painting front I started off with the green, remembering I can only use one colour at a time. Managed to cover in front of the lift, earth, the green on the stairs and even put in some of the birds on the sky level. This was then followed up with the yummy blue paint - again in front of the lift, earth, some of the space background and again sky level recieved a cloud.

drawing on design

Can really start to see the design come together and looking forward to putting on the other colours tomorrow.

painting day 1....

Today was an interesting day.

We spent the day priming and through trial and error learnt the best technique to use the primer/paint. My previous experience with this type of paint has been on a large area situated outside. Today was completely different. Alison and I are working around the general day to day workings of the car park - which means having to corden off certain areas at any one time, for example only areas in front of one lift on each level so people with pushchairs etc can still get to the upper floors without any difficulties. Add to this jigsaw puzzle the fact that the primer and paint becomes unusable in 30 minutes!!!!

We soon learnt on our first attempt: I mixed up the whole tin of primer and managed two of the levels, but when I arrived at the third I was confronted with the primer left smoking! yes, smoking, it was already going off and it hadn't been 30 minutes. Then the tray and roller started to smoke - I have never seen anything like it. In fact the roller ended up slightly melted and stuck firmly to the tray - oops!

What happens is if the resin based paint is left in the tin it reacts and goes off quicker and becomes extremely hot, hence the smoke. So, taking this all into account I only mixed up half the amount and it worked a treat.

Alison priming between stairs.

We eventually managed to prime the level 4/3 stairwell and the areas outside the left lift on levels four and three too. I had hoped to had done more today but many factors came up, including starting late and the carpark was having problems with their lifts which made it harder to close off the stairs. But I'm feeling positive about tomorrow, I will start painting on the designs as i have a couple of lovely helpers carrying on woth the priming - many thanks!

Speaking of the designs I have also re-worked a few of them because it was brought to my attention that it was felt that they didn't show enough of the children's original drawings. As you can see (in the re-worked designs below) I have added a few more characters e.g an octopus, some different cars and flowers. But I haven't been able to go into much detail because of the nature of the paint and the timescale.

water

air

land

final designs...

So having taken home all the group's designs, I set about coming up with the final designs. It was a long process in the sense that I had to make sure I had included something from everyone and that I had spread out the designs evenly throughout the five levels. Considering that I had limited the colour scheme to just four colours: safety red, yellow, green and blue I did not have any issues when placing their drawings into the designs and have not had to change any colours.

The final five designs:

level 1 - welcome

level 2 - water

level 3 - land

level 4 - sky

level 5 - space

Each design consists of the lift area, stairs and landing. Unfortunately children will not be able to help out with the actual painting of the designs in the car park because of the type of paint being used. I will be using epoxy paint which means I only have a certain amount of time to put down the paint before it goes off. But hopefully they will come down for a visit during the painting process, and all being well I should be starting on monday!!!!

designs....

....in the car park there are five levels which need to be designed. I wanted the overall look of the mural to be something that could be followed as you went up the levels. So, I came up with the following concept:

ground floor - welcome design

first floor - water design

second floor - land design

third floor - sky design

fourth floor - space design

and to help these designs link up throughout the floors I have limited the colour scheme to only four colours.

The children started on their designs straight after the car park visit when all the information was fresh in their minds. Then during the summer i collected various images connected to each subject and created 'mood boards' for each theme. I went back into the school after the summer was over and had another design session with the children, they were busy bees and came up with fantastic ideas using different media including pastels,paints and computers.

Here are just a few of the artworks created:

From all the artwork made my job was to then take something from everyone and create the final designs for the car park mural..........