I recently finished painting a mural for a new European style artisan bakery in town. The brief was to paint bread in a non-cliched way, to include a local element without making it touristy, and to encourage customers to look down into the shop to see all the yummy things being handmade fresh in the store.
We decided to focus on one of the islands just off-shore; the one with the old lighthouse. I wove in the history of how the supplies used to be delivered to the island via boat, then hoisted in up the cliff in baskets. My concept employed a little “artistic/poetic license” with a loopy rope leading from the preparation bench in the kitchen, across the mural, all the way to the lighthouse, with baskets of bread seeming as though they’ve been freshly packed by the bakers, and sent sliding on their way along the rope.
The bakery owners also like my whales with hands, so we popped some of them in there too. It seemed only right since so many of them visit this area each year.
The final result being that your eye tends to land on the whales, swirl around the water, and follow the rope all the way into the kitchen!
Visit the bakery at:
k’pane, Artisan Bakery
Jetty Village Shopping Centre
Coffs Harbour, NSW.
(P.S. The movie above is a stop motion capture, created by animating a series of still photos, taken once every five minutes during the painting process. If you enjoy it, please do share it around!)
