Outlines Creative C.I.C.

Teaming up with a whole host of fantastic artists, Foyer Aberdeen now has a vibrant, welcoming, positive mural for their courtyard. 

At the start of this year we were approached by Dean Macrae, skills coach at The Foyer. He had been running a programme for people interested in learning new creative skills and working towards a skills certificate. 

Dean had invited our friends Slave, Nestor, Aberdeen Street Art, and Fresh Paint to deliver different skills sessions, giving the group a world-class education in street art and graffiti. We got involved for the final stage – a co-designed mural. 

Kirsty and Naomi were really impressed by the skills and knowledge they had already developed. Everyone had different interests – characters, letters, fills, activism – and we explored these through a practice session at Sunnybank Park and design workshop at the Foyer HQ. 

During the design phase, we asked the group to consider who they thought would see the mural and what thoughts of feelings they would want that person to have. One young person suggested that we should use the opportunity to make people feel like the foyer was a welcoming and fun place where you were listened to, and suggested graffiti-style letters incorporating the Foyer logo. One of the other participants wanted to make a positive statement and suggested a message about how love triumphs over hate. 

As a team, we all worked together to make the different elements work together, using what they had learned over the course of the whole programme. They decided to go with multi-coloured camo-print fill in the letters, to reflect the vibrancy of the Foyer, as well as a symbolic design where the word ‘love’ has been painted over ‘hate’ to make visitors to the foyer feel seen, and convey that positivity creates unity. 

We met for the last time on 9th April to install the mural. Foyer had built a new frame for boards to display the work, which was perfect for visitors to be able to see. The group chose to paint a textured blue and purple pattern as the background and then set to work applying their designs. 

There were a couple of changes from the sketches: seeing the pink colours in real life inspired the team to use a colour gradient from dark to light in the ‘Love over Hate’ piece; and the outlines on ‘Foyer’ changed from blue to black to help the letters stand out against the backdrop with the message in the circle changed to recognised the 30th anniversary of Foyer Aberdeen. 

This was a real test of the group’s skills, but they smashed it, applying all outlines, fills, drop shadows, and making the important decisions about colour and composition! 

Using spraypaint is so different to other mediums and a full day of painting uses a lot of stamina, but the team made light work. That was all helped by a healthy portion of veg soup from the kitchen! 

We were really glad to be asked to be part of this project, as Aberdeen Foyer provide such vital services to people in North East Scotland, supporting independent living and access to education and work.