As part of the Upland Spring Fling Rural Mural project, I was one of eleven artists selected to collaborate with international street artists to create six murals across the UK and Europe.

Led by Amy and Ali from Recoat, with a not-insignificant amount of help from Lewis Fraser aka Shining Pie I took part in creating two murals - one 'rural" in Moniaive, Dumfries and Galloway, the other 'urban', in central Glasgow.

We worked for two weeks in a very cold and wet Scottish spring, high up on cherry pickers (a challenge for someone who's scared of heights) in what was an incredibly rewarding experience.  Having kicked off with an intro session at artist Annie Peel's studio, where we got the hang of working with different media and a chance to start brainstorming ideas we were ready to hit the streets, working in an urban setting being a far cry from my usual lonesome wanderings in the wilds.  It was pretty interesting to listen to the ongoing commentary from passers-by, the overheard phrase "this will ruin everything" later becoming a motif for the Recoat ten year anniversary.  I was hugely impressed by Ali and Amy's ability to firstly design the works, and then be able to deconstruct them in order to translate them onto a wall-sized canvas.  Additionally, we only had a set range of paints to work from, meaning we had to hand mix the colours we wanted to use from what was available, which was a fascinating process in itself.

For anyone who would like to watch a short film documenting the whole project, you can head over to Emma Dove's page to watch her film entitled "What Are We Doing Here?     

Finally a huge thank you to Colin Tennant, who took all the photographs and timelapse video on this page, you can check out more of his work here.