Rose St Artist's Market Mural
Support Local Artists
Located in Wurundjeri Country
60 Rose St, Fitzroy, Naarm / Melbourne
Collaboration with artist Angela Plasma
For this mural we wanted to portray the diverse community of artists and locals of all ages that take part in the market every weekend. Each visit being like entering another world, full of magic, surprises and colour.
Many of the characters and details are inspired by past and present stall holders from the market and their creations. We also added some Fitzroy references and a nod to our Latin American culture (Mexico and Colombia)!
Many of the characters and details are inspired by past and present stall holders from the market and their creations. We also added some Fitzroy references and a nod to our Latin American culture (Mexico and Colombia)!
A little bit about the process:
After agreeing on a concept and characters we struggled a bit to make our visions and graphic styles work together. (Angela proposed more flat shapes and I relied more on thicker outlines) After experimenting many hours and back and forth in Photoshop we got it to work out!
Top: Initial sketch by Angela Plasma, Middle: my sketch, Bottom: Approved artwork with a combination of our styles!
To transfer the artwork we used a variation of the doodle grid. Since we didn’t want to mess the background pink colour we used masking tape to create some reference marks. To overlay the outline version of the artwork we tried the Fused app, but ended up doing it in Photoshop for full control of the wall’s perspective and matching artwork.
We planned to paint colour flats from lighter to darkest but we didn't have the patience, instead, we painted by characters or bigger chunks, starting with the side walls so the middle matched properly (considering the columns)
Working this way helped get a better sense of the composition, and to feel some progress was being done.
The brick wall was extremely irregular and it took us around 30 hours to complete, but considering the amount of detail and the size of the wall we were pretty happy.
Click on the gallery below to view details of the finished mural.
Murals are big projects to tackle and feel intimidating at times, but once completed it feels very rewarding and worth every second spent on them. My advise for those interested be patient and don't give up!
Big thanks to The Rose St Artist's Market for the trust in our work, to Fieldey for an amazing mural painting course, to all the nice neighbours and locals for their kind words, and last but not least, to Angela Plasma for this wonderful collaboration.
Open for commissions if you've got walls that need some love.
