This was commissioned by the Howick Village Business Association, and paid for from a grant from the Department Of Justice. The brief for the work was broadly to be a historic, Howick depiction. The owners of the nearby “Rosscourt” said that they preferred a maritime theme.

The mural is to proceed in three stages. Stage one is completed. Stage two is another large painting “Working Horses” that will face the intersection. There are two more paintings as stage three, to be placed further down Cook Street to the left of the completed stage one.

More figures are planned also. I have used my own mixture to arrive at the dark blue, but I have the formula saved, so that anyone should be able to go to a paint shop and get a match when touch ups are needed. I painted the building behind, “Rosscourt” the same colour so that it disappeared behind my mural. The only warm colours in the area are my mural pieces, so that they are dominant.

 

Ron with mural

Ron and Jo

Why the figures?

I wanted to do more than just paintings. Sooner or later, people will stop looking at them, but the life size figures attract attention, as they look like a crowd that has gathered, and is already looking at something. And I wanted to have more fun painting the mural. I got the figures by visiting a “Santa Parade” in Henderson, and the Auckland Zoo.

Every time I got my camera out, I had to explain why I wanted to take their photo, and of course it became ‘posed’ straight away, so I had to go to a place that I could take photos, and not draw attention to myself. So while they were all looking at the animals, and the parade, I was photographing them from behind. I did no want too many that were looking straight at the paintings, as that would place the view from right behind them, as this is very boring for me to paint, and not very creative visually.

They were painted in Oils, so that I could get the detail as near to the real thing as I can. Acrylics have the unhappy problem that they dry a different colour to when they are wet, and that I knew would be a problem if I had to touch these up later. The same thing applies with the paintings.

Painting "Working Horses"

"Cockle Bay Wharf"

"Howick Beach"