The Course
Course Overview / Our Team / Evaluation
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Course Overview
We run a three hour session twice a week.
On Wednesday evening (6 - 9 pm) we talk and on Saturday (10 - 1pm) we make.
Term 1: Focusing on the thinking behind the creation of a mural (scouting for walls, analysing context and participation processes, design development, photoshop skills, evaluation) as well as sharpening up observational drawing skills, painting and scaling up.
Term 2: Carrying out a participation process (from idea to design), fundraising, writing risk assessments, proposal development and pitch, building towers, painting a mural, evaluation.
1. Overview
Intro to Muralism – Public Art
Timeline of the course, what to expect
Skeleton of a project start to finish
Funding/How projects can be paid for
Project management (Gantt chart/other tools for project management/keeping on schedule)
2. Working with the public (and getting their support)
Artistic responsibility – being part of a team
Community engagement methodologies
The law, the council, bureaucracy, permissions
The Politics of ownership – copyright and copyleft
Authorship in participatory processes Public funding, pitching, gathering support
Who is the audience? Who is the participant?
Stakeholders
3. Creating Through Consensus (participatory process)
The Politics of Public Art: A balancing act
Ideas/themes for community engagement
Can Art be truly democratic
Designing by committee
Tilting the balance
4. Turning ideas into Artwork
Design development – dynamic playful processes
Using Photoshop – crash course
Collage – paper photoshop
Balancing time available with amount of detail
5. Urban Cultural Development
The Build Environment – potential for change
Logic of a Space – situations and changing perceptions
6. Making it happen
Budgets
Timelines
Equipment and material provision (how to plan/estimate quantities)
Health + Safety (incl. safeguarding)
Who you need on your side
7. Painting a Mural – on site skills
Scaling up the work, bringing the design and wall together
Building a the Scaffolding Tower
Defining Areas
Handling volunteers – pitching to their level of ability
Resting times and pushing forwards
Assessing and recognising when something is not working
When to leave it
Varnishing and Anti- graffiti
Our Team
Artist Tutors: Patricio Forrester.
Evaluator: Imogen Slater
Treasurer: Neus Gil Cortes
Advisors: Cristiana Bottigella
Jo Baker
Patricio Forrester
Patricio Forrester is the founder of the London School of Muralism. He is also the artist behind Artmongers, an organisation specialising in public art since 2003. In his over 30 murals in the UK and overseas, he often combines elements of a situationist approach with humour and colour. His art comes from the belief that communities should take ownership of the spaces they inhabit, and changing dead spaces through participatory art can lead to enhanced wellbeing and social cohesion.
Patricio came to London from Buenos Aires in 1995 to do an MFA at Goldsmiths. After graduation, he started to take his art to the streets through painting and wearing artworks everywhere he went. He then transitioned to participatory processes and large scale murals.
One of his most loved works, Deptford Pearls (2001), overlooks Deptford High Street and has become iconic for the Borough. Other murals in the area include A Thousand Feet Will Follow (2019), By The Way/Marquis of Granby (2017) and Round About Now (2018). He has also made work for hospitals and refugee camps, as well as a series of interventions in remote communities in various countries such as Scotland, The Gambia, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Jordan, Spain and Argentina.
Our Team
Artist Tutors: Patricio Forrester.
Evaluator: Imogen Slater
Treasurer: Neus Gil Cortes
Advisors: Cristiana Bottigella
Jo Baker
Patricio Forrester
Patricio Forrester is the founder of the London School of Muralism. He is also the artist behind Artmongers, an organisation specialising in public art since 2003. In his over 30 murals in the UK and overseas, he often combines elements of a situationist approach with humour and colour. His art comes from the belief that communities should take ownership of the spaces they inhabit, and changing dead spaces through participatory art can lead to enhanced wellbeing and social cohesion.
Patricio came to London from Buenos Aires in 1995 to do an MFA at Goldsmiths. After graduation, he started to take his art to the streets through painting and wearing artworks everywhere he went. He then transitioned to participatory processes and large scale murals.
One of his most loved works, Deptford Pearls (2001), overlooks Deptford High Street and has become iconic for the Borough. Other murals in the area include A Thousand Feet Will Follow (2019), By The Way/Marquis of Granby (2017) and Round About Now (2018). He has also made work for hospitals and refugee camps, as well as a series of interventions in remote communities in various countries such as Scotland, The Gambia, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Jordan, Spain and Argentina.
Lionel Stanhope
A Lewisham resident for over 15 years Lionel has played a major part in bringing Street Art and murals to the Borough.
After taking part in the first Brockley Street Art Festival in 2015 he and others carried on with the festival for the next few years organising many paintings and art that can be seen in Brockley and surrounding areas.
Lionel trained as a signwriter when leaving school and his love of Typography can be seen in many of the named rail signs locally in the now iconic ‘hotdog’ shape including Hither Green, Catford, Forest Hill and Brockley.
His 25 year career in painting Theatre and Film Sets has served him well when it comes to painting large scale work and we are very pleased in having his support at the London School of Muralism.
You can follow Lionel’s work on Instagram.
The Artful Dodger (A. Dee)
The Artful Dodger (A. Dee) is a first-generation veteran of the London Urban Art/Aerosol Writing scene going back to the early 1980s, serving as an influence to some of today’s top UK artists in that field.
Originally being influenced by art masters such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, and later, Salvador Dali in his early art career, once he established his reputation as an urban artist he made the transition from the streets to the corporate world, evolving professionally to have clients which include LucasFilm (Star Wars), Heathrow Airport, EA Games, MTV, The South Bank Show, The Sunday Times, as well as a well-known breakfast cereal.
On the community arts side of his portfolio, he has a strong background in both organising and facilitating a variety of creative mural projects and workshops. Working mainly in inner cities with disadvantaged youth and other young people (through children’s arts charities such as SP8 Of The Art), he also been involved in projects in the US and throughout Europe, as well as all over the UK.
You can follow The Artful Dodger on Instagram.
