“Thread of history” is a large-scale mural painted in Greensborough in late 2022.
This work is an exciting departure in style and technique for me as it was painted entirely with Viponds Acrylic (Artist’s range as well as the regular Low Sheen Exterior Acrylic Range), a lot of roller pole techniques and a bold outline. I leant a lot heavier into a new style of painting with this work and also drew on my inner kid’s comic book influences.
As always I custom mixed all the colours for this project to end up with some hybrid colours that are unrepeatable! But I usually start with the following Viponds colours in some form or another: Ultramarine Blue, Reflex Blue, Rhodamine, Signal Red, Deep Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Bright Green and White. Ultramarine is the current favourite, I seem to be using it in all my mural work at the moment.
The mural consists of local native flora and fauna as well as some historical objects that are relevant to the area. Despite being given nearly 100% creative freedom on this project I wanted to have the work relate to the area somehow. I did this by sourcing some images (from the Heidelberg & Greensborough historical societies) of objects that once belonged to residents of Greensborough from long ago.
These consisted of a ceramic jug, some horseshoe pliers, and some weaving tools.
The background of the work was painted with a base tri-colour palette layer and then watered down versions of these colours were applied, dripping down the wall resulting in a textured gradient of sorts.
The objects have been rendered with dry brushing techniques in some spots to allow the background ‘drip effect’ to show through, giving these relics of history a ghostly look.
The mural also features a ‘Solarquin’ — these sun-faced characters feature in most of my work and have come to represent a search for a harmonious existence with nature among other things.
Here the Solarquin has one of the weaving tools and the encompassing thread that flows from it is tying everything together.
The whole piece is symbolic of the many little things that contribute to the make up of a place and how that can result in something that is more than the sum of its parts.
Hayden Dewar
Melbourne based Muralist & Illustrator
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This Mural was painted with Viponds