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Viewing single post of blog Professional Practice 2 – Blog Review

Back in January 2020, I was approached by the headmaster of Framlingham College Prep School – a school which I had both attended as a pupil and worked as a member of staff for – and was asked if I would consider doing some artwork on a glass wall in the school, that would act as a motivational quote board for the pupils to be inspired by.

I was more than happy to commit to this project and so we set about discussing what work I could do. The idea was that I would do the artwork in liquid chalk pens as they could easily be wiped away, and therefore allow me to do a new piece of artwork/inspirational quote every week for the next few weeks. The headmaster wanted something that both the pupils, staff and parents could all relate to and we discussed the possibility of doing a children’s story book as it would have a great appeal to an audience of many different ages. However, we couldn’t find one that really jumped out at us. We spoke about the usual choices for school murals such as Dr Seuss, or Winnie-the-Pooh, but everything we thought of seemed slightly cliché and just a bit ‘overused’ in a school setting.

It just so happened that both the Headmaster and I were following the same artist on Instagram, Charlie Mackesy, who had just released his book ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse’.

We both loved the simplicity of the work and the messages that Charlie conveyed in his works. So I ended up doing a weekly drawing right up until the pandemic hit in April of 2020. Due to this, I ended up not doing anymore drawings as there were no pupils in school to see it.

However, the headmaster wanted to continue to have some artwork for the pupils to enjoy whilst they were remote learning and so suggested the idea of producing a series of murals around the school. I was really keen to do this as it seemed like such a nice idea and not one we have really seen done in a school.

One obstacle of this of course was the issue of copyright on the images. Whilst the liquid chalk pens were probably alright as they could easily be wiped away when needed to, the headmaster and I felt we should probably get permission to use the images in murals as they would be more permanent.

We managed to find his email via his social media pages and managed to get his permission to use his works.

He even posted a photo of the one of my glass drawings on his Instagram account:

What this process has taught me is the importance of social media within art practice. By being connected with other artists on social media, I was able to draw on them for inspiration to propel my own work forwards.

Also, by posting the work I had done for the school on social media, I have since got some more requests by other staff members at the school who want other murals for their departments (I will be doing another post about this and the logistics of it at a later date).

Below are a few of the murals I painted in the school:


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