If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you probably already know that I spent November 2024 painting my biggest artwork yet - a mural for the new Wrexham Art Trail! It is one of the most exciting projects I have ever done and I put a lot of time and effort into to making it special. After all, it will hopefully be around for a very long time and I wanted to create something that I could be proud of. Here is the story of how I made my Markets Mural...

It all began when I saw a Facebook post asking people to apply to create a mural for a new art trail in Wrexham that would showcase Wrexham's history, culture and heritage. I figured that most people would probably suggest doing something about the football club or the coal mine as they are a very prominent part of Wrexham's identity, and although they are an important part of the town they have never really been a part of my experience of growing up in Wrexham, and if I was going to create something big I wanted it to be something that I really cared about.

The obvious answer was the markets. Wrexham has historically always been a market town; it's position on the border between North Wales and the North West of England made it an ideal central hub. I grew up in one of Wrexham's indoor markets as my Mum was a market trader alongside her Dad, so the markets hold very happy memories for me, as they do for a lot of people in Wrexham. Over the last 20 years or so a lot of Wrexham's markets have been lost (the demolition of the Veg Market is sore point that will never heal), but this year they began a multi-million pound renovation of the historic Butchers and Butter/General Markets so it seemed to be perfect timing to create a piece of art that would celebrate Wrexham's markets of the past, present and future.

I sent in a few different ideas for market murals, but my favourite idea was to create a sort of brickwork of real Wrexham market traders throughout the years, featuring stalls from across all of Wrexham's indoor and outdoor markets. I never really expected to actually get the job as I don't really have an experience painting outside or on such a huge scale, I just applied on a whim really, but the team in charge really liked my idea and said yes! Which was terrifying because now I actually had to do it!

I already had an idea of some of the traders I wanted to feature on my mural - my mum and grandad were obvious candidates - but I wanted to make sure I included people that meant something to everyone in Wrexham, not just me. I put a shout out on Facebook for people to nominate traders that they would like to see and to send me photos of them and their stalls. Well, the response was amazing! So many people sent their suggestions, a lot of familiar names but also people I didn't know that were a big part of the market scene. I had lots of people sending me photos of different generations of their family who had worked on the same market stall through the years. In fact it amazed me how many of the stalls were family affairs, which is how I went from an initial idea of about 10 people to a final design of 30 people! I simply couldn't pick one generation over another and I really liked the idea of showcasing how much the markets were such a big part of a lot of families lives.

Although I got some great photos sent to me by the public there were some people for which I had names but no faces, so I went to the Wrexham archives in the library and scoured through hundreds of photos and news articles looking for images of traders and their stalls, as I wanted to depict real stalls not just make them up. I also spent several weeks searching the internet for photos until finally I had my all my market traders in place. It was a lot more people than I originally planned but I had a good mix of past and present, and at least one stall from each one of Wrexham's markets. Of course given how long the markets have been around I wasn't going to fit everybody in. I know some people won't agree with my final selection but hopefully there will be somebody on there for everyone.

​Now for the design.

In my initial design I drew the market stalls exactly how the appeared in the photos, however I quickly realised that that was an insane idea and if I did that I would painting that wall for a year! Given that I only had until the end of December I decided to really trim it down and go for a more representational style while still keeping enough real features from the stalls that they would be recognisable. 

Day 3 was when you could see the first glimpses of what the finished mural would like. 

On day 4 I painted in most of the heads that I could reach with a ladder and the people started to look like people.

Another day on the platform and I painted the first face and finished my first stall (mostly). I painted the DVDs in Mad4Movies (which you may have seen on the Welcome to Wrexham documentary series) in a mix of masonry and acrylic paint because I couldn't find a bright red in the masonry. It started to rain towards the end of the day and because I had yet to spray a weather proof lacquer over the acrylic paint I taped a plastic sheet over it to stop it running. 

On day 7 I painted in the first hair dos which was pretty fun. I kept the hair palette limited to five colours: blonde, brown, black, grey, and white (except for one lady who had pink hair). I did this to save time and to prevent anyone being disappointed that I got the shade of their hair wrong. Also a lot of the photos I had of the traders were in black and white so getting an accurate hair colour wasn't possible

Day 8 was just a good solid day of painting blocks of colour and filling in some gaps.

​Day 9 was my first time using spray paint on a wall. I realised whilst painting the DVDs that doing all the red bits in acrylic wasn't going to work; it took too many coats and wasn't reliably weatherproof. I don't really have any spray painting skills so I did my best to get some straight lines using a piece of card board and simply painted over any rough edges with masonry paint. It was a lot quicker than acrylic paint!   

Day 10 was another day of filling in gaps. It was windier today and the plastic sheet kept try to blow away so I really went to town with the tape! I may have over done it slightly but it didn't move after that! 

Day 12 was cow day! Painting the cow was my favourite bit of the whole mural. She represents the beast market that used to be held on Eagles Meadow next to where the mural is situated. I decided to hold a competition on social media for people to name the cow and the winning name was Muriel the mural cow, which is the perfect name for her I think (although my personal favourite was Moon Lisa!).

Today was another day up on the platform finishing off the farmer and making a start on Esme's children's wear. This photo makes it look like day 13 was super foggy but there was actually just paint on my camera - the paint ended up everywhere!

Day 14 was the absolute worst! It started off really positively with a plan to finish the whole top section. I had just spent an hour or so painting the last bits of Esme's section, including a large section of brown hair, and I was just about to move the platform over to the next bit when the heavens opened and all that fresh paint started running down the wall! What followed was a frantic rush trying to soak up as much wet paint as possible before it ran the full length of the wall.

The rain only lasted about half an hour but the damage was done and all the work I had done in the morning was ruined and I had to spend the next few hours fixing it, which meant I didn't have enough time to finish the whole top section. It really sucked, and I spent every day after that checking over my shoulder to make sure another raincloud wasn't sneaking up on me! ​

Day 15 was when I started to fill in all the faces and the people really started to come to life. Everyone essentially has the same face with different glasses, facial hair, skin tone and hair do to give them their likeness. This was one of the moments when I was really glad that I had gone for a cartoony style and not a realistic on because the lumpy brickwork made small details very time consuming.

Snow day! Most people probably wouldn't paint outside in the snow but I'm not most people! It was absolutely freezing cold and by 2 o'clock I had to admit defeat because I could no longer feel my hands, even after the very nice staff at Colour Supplies let me sit in their staff from for a while to warm up.

Day 17 was freezing!!! It didn't get above 2 degrees all day! I had to make a choice between being able to feel my hands or being able to hold a brush properly - I chose my hands. It was an added challenge but the big thick gloves were definitely worth it. ​I had planned to have all the faces done by this point but I couldn't paint small details properly with the big gloves on so I stuck to the bigger areas whilst I waited for the weather to warm up.

All the faces are done! This was one of the biggest bits left to do and it felt so good to finally finish them. 

I finished the top section today and the end was finally in sight. I did the lettering on the sign with Posca pens instead of paint which was a huge time saver (thank you to Liam for the suggestion and for the pens!). The white triangle is based on the shop signs found on the stalls in the People's Market which is something I always remember when I think back.

On day 20 I did the detail on all the food items. The meat on the butchers stall was a bit of a challenge because of how deep the holes were between the bricks which made straight lines very tricky.

It's finished! Day 21 was a lovely sunny winters day which was such a nice way to finish off my mural. Adding in the stripes on the butcher's aprons was one of the last big details and it really added a pop to the whole wall. You can tell from how dark it is that I finished fairly late in the day because I was determined to finish and I kept spotting little bits that I'd missed. 

When I was scouring the archives looking for photos of market traders I stumbled across some photos of the day the People's Market closed and one them showed the blue, green and yellow triangle tiled floor pattern that used to be inside each entrance. Seeing it made me smile and brought back so many memories of the market: the smells, the noise, the chill in the winter. I knew instantly that I wanted to include it in the mural and I thought how fun it would be include a motif from each of the market buildings. Everyone loves looking for hidden details in movies and pictures, and it would be a great way to commemorate the market buildings as well as the people who worked there.

I made this key to show who is represented on the mural. It tells you their name, the name of their stall and which market they could be found in. I know many of these people would have traded at the outdoor markets too but I didn't have room to name them all so I've mainly included their permanent market stalls.  

I hope you enjoyed the story of how I made my mural and if you would like to see more images and progress videos check out my Facebook and Instagram pages.

My beautiful stormy painting 'Geese Over Loch Laich Salt Marsh' is currently on display and for sale at the Ty Pawb Open Exhibition 2024 in Wrexham. It's always nice to see your art in a public space and even better when you eavesdrop on people and here them call it beautiful!

Another Wrexham Artisan Market and my first (sort of) Christmas market of the year. It was another lovely day (they really do know how to pick the weather!) and once again lots of people came through. I also had some return customers which is always amazing.

Definitely the best setting I have ever had for a craft fair! This was at Gwrych Castle in Abergele back in August and although it wasn't a great event in terms of sales it was a beautiful fair and the view was stunning!

It was shame the event wasn't better sign posted because almost everyone I spoke to was simply there to visit the castle and the craft fair was a nice surprise; they had no idea it was on. Still, the weather was beautiful and I had some yummy food so I had a lovely day anyway!

Wrexham had it's very first official Pride event this year with a special Pride Market to go with it. It was my first time at Pride and it was such a fun day with so much joy and colour. A lot more people turned up than the organisers thought would do which was lovely, and hopefully it will become a bigger and better event every year!

The market stalls were all encouraged to get rainbowed up for the event and they all looked so beautiful and fun. I made my own felt rainbow bunting which looked adorable!

Sadly we lost the original member of Team Inferno (the team name for mine and my sister's dogs) recently - the beautiful Sally. She was 18 years old and was my sister's first dog so for her birthday this year I decided to paint her a picture of Sally in all her queenly majesty.

I took the photo for this painting when Sally was younger and I always loved how towering she looked even though she is actually the size of a cat. Sally was almost completely grey at the end except for the end of her tail, and I always forget how ginger she used to be.  

We will miss you Sally x x

A little while back I made a postcard for the Ilkley Arts Secret Postcard Auction. I wasn't allowed to advertise what I'd made until after the auction was complete as who made each postcard had to remain a secret. The theme was 'Passage' so I decided to draw part of the door at Saddell Castle in Scotland as it shows two types of passage - the door leads to a passage and the aging shows the passage of time - deep right! (hahaha)

I'm really proud of this one. I think the texture of both the metal and wood are really effective. It was done from a photo I took many years ago when I stayed at Saddell Castle and I think this image really captures the castle's magic.

It was done in chalk pastels and coloured pencil on brown paper. I've fallen in love with chalk pastels recently, and combining them with coloured pencils is something I've never thought to do in the past but I love the results.