In Summer 2023 we started working with Rachel at the Kintore Bothie on using our resources to make a difference in Kintore. Rachel was working with young people in the YAFTS group on mental health and journey’s to happiness, which inspired our initial workshop.

One of the drawings by youth worker Emma helped us shape our plan.

We started with the south wall, painting the ‘path to happiness’ where participants decorated the path with activities to improve mental health.

Working with so many enthusiastic young people was amazing! We smashed the south wall in only one day and moved on to our plans for the north wall – adapting Emma’s map for spraypaint!

There was only a week between wall 1 and wall 2, where we had to pull together different design elements from the young people to create something they would love. We used Emma’s illustrations paired with words spoken by the workshop participants as a design for the wall and tasked the team with replicating it on the wall.

When we ended up with a gap in the design Emma designed a new landmark, the railway bridge over the Don to fill the gap.

The result was amazing and again it was knocked out the park by our team of young people who were now professional painters! You can find these paintings of Kintore kirk, fountain, Hallforest castle, pictish stone and town hall under the A96, on castle road in Kintore.

Funded by Creative Aberdeenshire Networks.

Completed Sept. 2023