Fitzroy Art Collective Mural
5.10 x 1.40mts
Located in Wurundjeri Country
66 Cecil St, Fitzroy, Naarm / Melbourne
For this mural I had absolute freedom to create what I wanted. The Fitzroy Art Collective has a bunch of lovely cats, and I love cats so I rendered my Mexican day of the Death version of a cat skull along some playful cartoon floating-pizza-eating worms and axolotls.
Painted mainly with brushes and house paint, but experimented a little bit with spray cans for white and black large areas and fixing some outlines and details.
Digital sketch and colour variant (created in Photoshop)
I ran a poll on Instagram to help me decide on the backgroun. It was a close call and black background won 51% to 49%
Process
I used an overlay reference to roughly block out the black and white areas with spray paint, then used masking tape to create some reference marks as a grid to trace the artwork.
Colour flats were the most fun, as my partner in crime and life Clau and local friends dropped by to help fill in some areas. Then I worked on 2 shades of grey for the cat's skull and added the black outlines which really made the artwork pop.
On the last day I added more details and shading to the worms, and used Molotow white markers to add some highlights.
Total time spent: 16 hours. I'm still learning to paint walls, so I consider this to be slow. On the other hand this was meant to be a fun personal project and I really enjoy painting while listening to good music. So I just broke the sessions into smaller chunks, dabbed patiently on the rough brick walls and didn't rush or stress overall. It was also nice to chat with the neighbours who even brought beers!
Materials
Taubmans Exterior paint for colours and greys
Loop spray paint for black and white big areas and fixes (orange cap and banana cap)
Flat brushes 50mm to #14
Fine liner sable brush (useful to fill gaps)
Molotow white exterior marker
Stencils for Kattattak's logo
Big thanks to The Fitzroy Art Collective for always having something amazing going on and for trusting my work. It's an honour to be on their walls along so many cool local artists. Thanks too to all the cool cats and kittens of Cecil Street for the inspiration.
Open for commissions if you've got walls that need some love.
