Hillingdon council's mini-mural BT box street art project

Prologue: 

40 artists and creative people submitted designs to Hillingdon council's street art project and we had to choose the 3 most interesting to have painted on BT box street furniture in the Uxbridge high street.  

We met at the council offices and had a friendly debate about which designs were the most interesting/dynamic/suitable for the selectid BT boxes. (Mr.Mayor included who proudly showed us his solid silver Mace stick)

The final designs chosen are (and in no particular order...) 

Christine Turnbull's 'Hillingdon Rose' 

Alan Ford's 'Relationship with Water'

and Felicity Harrison's 'Lambert pattern' design

Mini-mural project Day 1



Christine Turnbull made a lovely design of a close up of a handpainted Hillingdon rose that waz first cultivated in the area and named after Lady Hillingdon. Her BT box location is appropriately right next to the flower stall directly outside the Uxbridge tube station. 

Lots of the local passers by said how excited there were to see somethingk interesting happening with public art in their area.

This is the artist's website: http://www.christineturnbull.com/

She even very cleverly made a paper model of the BT box with the rose design mapped out on it.. How professional! 

Spraypainting with Belmonts and Montana

Tripping advice from the council

even the 'shopping inspectors' turned up to make sure we were painting properly with our mural mojo all in order... 

Early stages/ werk in progress... end of Day 1

Time for bed

while visiting the next box to paint we are blessed by the auspicious sign of a double rainbow above the mini-mural location. its always good to receive a sign from above to grace our artistic endeavours with good luk.. 

A unique design of BT box ive never seen before that  will bee graced by Felicities design starting on Day 3

Mini-mural project Day 2 

90% of the public love the street art project
 (the rest are missing out on the joy of art and freedom of self expression!)

The design is coming along nicely 

Second side at end of Day 2

Local man happy to see more colour in the area

 http://www.christineturnbull.com

2nd box to paint

With this design by Alan Ford ("Relationship with Water") its pretty linear and mathematical so i figured it would be good to get the dimensions correct and exact by creating a stencil for it.

 
 stencilling Alan's design on 

i waz asked to paint the design on az Alan the designer for this box is more a photographer than painter

another pleased member of the public glad to see some interesting street art appear in the local area 

werk-in-progress Day 2

Again we see the amazing power of art to bring smiles to peoples faces! it often gets people talking and its amazing how many relationships and magical moments are created through bringing art to the people. 

Day 3 & 4: Meeting the Fliss the Mistress of Dots...

Meeting the Mistress of Dots waz a pleasure- Fliss brought 3 generations of her family to paint her multicoloured festival of circles onto the suitably unique rounded edge box (havent seen one with such curved edges before even tho i paintid a fair few of these boxes now). After couple of run ins with the bank manageress complaining of an asthmatic colleage in danger of her life due to paint fumes wafting into the branch we managed to get most of her design paintid in a day. 

The public response from passersby has been overwhelmingly positive. Toddlers, grannies and middle yeared folk all saying how much they like it, and whats not to like a bunch of multicolured circles of alternating sizes?! They are so symbolic of a multitude of different thingks. Planets, atoms, chewy sweets, communities, groups of people, sports balls etc take yer pick!... 

On Fliss's second day of paint spotting we got snowed on a bit and the level of happy comments and praise increased exponentially with the dot population...

A little waft of anthropamorphic project spontaeniously appeared several times when putting 2 circles into one other (a.p is the phenomenom of humans seeing recognisable faces in seemingly random patterns in nature, arranges of buildings, burnt cars in shopping centre car parks etc- its very common i hear)

After painting Alan's design well into the night my thumbs went weird after being frozen by the bitter winter chill but cheery comments from the random public pedestrians warmed my soul and helped to distract from the cold and add some brighter colours to the squiggle people..

Its so pleasing when people stop in the street to tell you how much they love the project youre werkin on. Hooray for postive random interactions!

Several graffiti guys told me how theyve been in trouble with the law from doing random uncommissioned paint jobs on tube trains, not sure why London Underground wouldnt appreciate their decorational efforts, but apparently its a criminal offence. i&i suggestid to them that they might bee better off sharing their skills and passions leading a graffiti/mural painting werkshop in a youth club where they'd bee paid to do it and wouldnt attract the attention of the 'boys in blue'. They seemed to agree and also see the sense in this suggestion. Apparently prison isnt very nice... (tho on the plus side the meals are regular)