how I became a muralist
My journey to becoming a muralist began in 2014 when I first saw street art whilst living in the centre of Bristol. You can’t walk down the street without noticing the recogniseable scent of a spray can or ducking through some scaffolding where a building fascia is being painted with bright, bold colour! It’s considered the birthplace of street art in the UK, famous for its links to Banksy and for embracing street art with festivals like UPfest where for one weekend a year, the town commissions mural artists to paint the buildings into a multicoloured neighbourhood. Cheltenham, Belfast and Worcester have similar events which are amazing to visit.
Left: 2012 A day out of the office demonstrating Dysons in Selfridges. Right: UPFEST Bristol 2013 - Duckmanton
Below: Mickey Snake at Dismaland 2015 - Banksy
At the time, I was working for Dyson designing vacuum cleaners in the Cotswolds and sharing a lift home everyday with my friends and colleagues. We’d all decided to live about an hour away from work in Bristol, to soak up the music, energy and life within the city. I’d fall asleep to the white noise of the M4 commute and wake up as we weaved our way into Stokes Croft, stalling in traffic by the practice wall where grafitti artists added new layers to the thick wall which was now more paint than concrete. It would take me another job, another city and another 5 years before I left the product design, disillusioned with the realisation that making plastic products left a bad feeling in my soul and that maybe it was doing more harm than good…I mean, do we really need to make another vacuum cleaner?
In 2018 I quit my job in Cambridge, left the industry altogether and enrolled in an MA in illustration with barely any foundation in art but an incredibly strong desire to draw for a living. I buried myself in images and sketchbooks for the next few years whilst I worked part time jobs like…furniture upcycling manager….mail order chocolate brownie packer…gp receptionist…..plant sales (and horitcultural googler) woman.
Those are stories for another day, but it was a formative time for me. Whilst I learned how to craft an image and tried to figure out why one image would give me a pang of happiness and another would fall flat reminding me of GCSE art, I had this underlying feeling that I needed to paint BIG. It could be because I’m 6ft 1 so obviously painting walls makes sense….but I think it’s also linked to my original interest in design and problem solving. Scaling a design from a sheet of a4 paper onto a 12metre wall, taking something beautiful that needs some technical skill to translate into the world just appeals to me. It allows me to develop a deep understanding of the materials I’m working with and requires problem solving, all the skills I used before…only this time I don’t have to sit at a desk and stare longingly out of a window to use them. I am also just SO so happy just being outdoors…it’s the reason why my first job after quitting engineering was selling tickets in a botanic garden…and my second was at a garden centre.
It still took a while to start painting BIG….there were 2 things in my way…firstly, I had NO experience painting murals….and secondly, I didn’t know how to make a design work on a wall. I’d been making illustration for websites and print, full of characters and scenery. This sometimes works for murals but I’d learn the hard way…BIG walls need BIG art.
The first piece of ‘mural’ art I created was on a door at the charity I worked for. I drew my small illustrations on the entrance to the upcycling workshop. Little characters using sewing machines and hammers. I was obsessed! Painting on surfaces that are functional was so liberating. The second large scale piece was a giant fibreglass cow painted for Cows About Cambridge. In my MA I was teaching myself to draw characters so I decided to cover the cow completely in little people. The third large scale artwork was painted on my (rental) home on the smallest wall in the flat which was the bathroom. It reflects my focus at the time of trying to understand figure and composition.
Left: painting the workshop door at the Emporium in Leamington 2019 Right: Painting a giant cow
Around this time I began to learn sign painting and went on a 3 day course down in Margate. I told the girls on the course about my dreams to paint murals and LJ invited me to paint one for the school she worked for….The London School of Economics! I painted one wall on a staircase to their startup incubator space in Old Kent Road. It was the biggest…scariest job to date….I was painting a brick stairwell which first required a stain blocker base coat to get rid of the dark brown bricks. It was so difficult, in some places the wall was 2 stories high. I used a ladder and a scaffold plank to paint the tallest section…do not try this at home. I panicked as the colour in the brick was leaching through the base coat leaving pale orange stains….these were almost invisible to the naked eye but I obsessed over them anyway. I stared at that wall so long, by the 5th day I was suffering with ice pick headaches…another lesson….no-one will ever look at that wall as close as you do!
Left to right: (1) I used to make paper templates out of A4 - a painstakingly slow process born out of fear. I don’t do that anymore (2) Painting the base coat onto dark brown brick (3) invisible stains (4) the least safe method of painting at height - I also don’t do that anymore.
That building was scheduled to be knocked down before I was commissioned, which gave me some comfort knowing that, if it was awful, not many people would see it. They invited me back a couple more times when they launched a new space for the students and I created probably my worst mural to date. I’d so far had small walls so scaling up my usual illustration onto the wall worked without too much issue…but with the bigger wall, my illustration looked odd…it was lost on the massive canvas and just looked bad….GCSE level bad. I realised I needed to study…to understand murals and what makes paintings work (or not work) on walls. So deepened the obsession with large scale artwork.
Around the same time I had a chance to create something better. I started working with Caffeine Project UK over at Binley Woods and created some coffee themed mural artwork for them which was such a joy to paint. I had planned to use a projector which just wouldn’t scale properly so I drew the design by eye, a skill any muralist should develop because equipment will always fail when you’re least expecting it. That was the first large scale mural I felt really proud of. If you haven’t been, go and visit! The coffee is sooo good and they have a Deli now too (I added some extra murals to the new space whilst heavily pregnant in 2024).
In 2022 I was commissioned to paint a mural in my hometown of Leamington before the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It was such a career defining moment. To get a commission for your hometown feels so special. I painted a map in the train station to welcome passengers to the town from platforms 5 and 6. It featured characters participating in sports to tie in with the games. It was another illustrative design but it worked really well in the context of the station.
Looking so happy go be painting a mural at the train station in Leamington
Between 2022 and 2023 I slowly grew my illustration client work so murals seemed to ebb and flow without much effort on my part. My hometown of Leamington had a couple of prolific street artists working at the time so I felt a bit like a tiny fish in a tiny pond. Most of the council commissions went to the same people or just appeared overnight. I decided to concentrate on my own style, things were improving with my designs, and look elsewhere for work. I began creating mockup murals on Photoshop which led to a series called ‘Mock Up Monday’ on social media. I created my own digital commissions in Leamington which allowed me to showcase my work and style with very little risk or expense.
A Photoshop rendering of a mural in Leamington on the glass house…it would be a dream project.
I also applied to call outs in other Midlands towns including Worcester, which has really become a home from home for me. Branching out I’ve been able to connect with so many brilliant people and my work is now in Worcester, Rugby, Somerset, France and soon to be in Birmingham!
A 12m mural that was co-designed for the brand new Urgent and Emergency Care department in Worcester in 2023. Funded by the Arts Council and supported by Severn arts.
In 2024 I gave birth to my son and although the following year should have been a lull in my career, more mural commisisons than ever appeared in my inbox. I felt a fire light under me. Having my son gave me this momentum that I hadn’t anticipated. I felt a confidence in my work that was missing before. My knowledge was strong and I knew I was offering something unique and different to the other artists in the area. I realised that I needed to share my work with local people and connect with other creatives in my area. I decided to commit to painting murals and really call myself a mural artist. This led to the launch of Mama Murals. It’s a mural business with heart and soul.
A visit from my son whilst painting a mural at Market Corner on Tachbrook Street in Leamington
I love working with people to change how spaces feel with paint. Art facilitates connection and brings people together. Painting a mural with me isn’t just about a painting, it’s about the process of designing with others, caring for a space, creating new connections and fostering pride in the neighbourhood. And of course, having some fun with paint.
I don’t use spray paints (not because there’s anything wrong with them) but I want to talk to people when I’m painting on the street and you can’t do that with a face mask on. I use block colours because it brings me joy to see how they sit with one another….but it also means people can easilty paint with me. My murals are like giant paint by numbers! I’m so excited for 2025-2026. There are more murals in the works and I can’t wait to share them with you. If you see me painting, come and say hi, I love talking to people and you never know, your suggestion might make it into the wall.
