32ft hand painted sign for street art laneway gallery

hewey · Jun 28, 2015

So recently I was lucky enough to be given the privilege of painting the main signage for a local street art installation. Called The Street Art Walk, the installation saw over 20 artists from both Australia and overseas come together to create a street art gallery in a dingy old laneway. Most of the walls were painted, and the idea is that over time new artists will come in and create new artworks, so the laneway will be constantly evolving. Not only does it celebrate street art, it demonstrates how public art can actually improve a public space and reactive it. If anyone is ever in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (a couple hours west of Sydney), its well worth checking out.

The fence I was painting is 32ft (10m in the local currency), and is at the entry to the laneway. I started the weekend before the launch event laying down some basecoat/primer.

Priming the fence with undercoat. Love the faded Cottees (cordial) ghost sign. You can also see I cleaned up all of the moss and crap at the base of the fence too.

hewey · Jun 28, 2015

The next weekend was the launch of the art, with most of the main artists painting. I started with the layout for the text. I did each word as individual words on overhead sheets, traced them to some paper, and then cut them out. The string line helps line them up, it had to be measured from the top of the fence as the ground wasn't straight. About this time the wind picked up. That's the next word lying in a tangled heap, weighted down by the tape. From here I then traced them in permanent marker.

Some of the art and artists Friday morning.

Here's the first coat done for the lettering.

Things got a little crowded while I was painting! The Winter Magic parade, which is a local festival, literally walked past my site. Didnt see much as I had my back to it. The Festival attracts 40,000 people so it was busy!

And here's where I got to Saturday afternoon, got the background black down. Will need another coat of white for the lettering, another coat for the black, and then carefully cut in the black around the lettering.

And some more pics of the other artworks and the crowd checking it all out.

hewey · Jun 28, 2015

Part of the sign was to include the social media/internet links for the project. The original plan was to handpaint it all by brush, but I figured it would be cool to mix it up a little and throw in some stenciled text. This was all cut with a scalpel like blade. I purposely wanted this a little loose to contrast with the main signwriting and have a bit of a street art vibe, hence the uneven layout, overspray etc.

Me cutting in around the lettering. Definitely interesting trying to get it neat across the panel joins, around tech screw heads etc. Slow process, but I actually really enjoy it.

And a few more pics of the artworks

hewey · Jun 28, 2015

A few more pics of some of the walls I hadnt managed to get decent pics of.

These rappers have been stenciled, so a different cutout and spraypaint for each graduation of colour. They look like photos till you get up close.

And some finished pics of my sign

ODDER · Jun 28, 2015

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

DJ Bill · Jun 28, 2015

Wow. Top notch skills there all around! Here's hoping that the art holds up for a long, long time!
Makes me feel like a preschooler with my vinyl work.

hewey · Jun 28, 2015

Thanks guys. DJ Bill the artwork will be painted over before it falls into disrepair. The idea is that ALL of the walls will be open for new artists to come along and put in an application to paint them. So by maybe 3-5 years, most of the walls will be repainted by new artists, so it will constantly evolve and change. Even my signage will be painted over. This gives new artists the opportunity to get involved, which is great because there's not many opportunities to paint such large walls.