In a Nutshell

This mural, In a Nutshell, was painted across two afternoons one weekend in March, by local artist Mick Batchelor (better known as dynamickart).

That's really all the essential information you need to know about the mural. However, if you want to know the full story, as documented by me (SAOS), then make yourself a cuppa, take a seat, and settle down. This will take a while...

It's Friday evening on the 20th March. I was getting things ready for a spot of hunting in Birmingham the following day, as well as attending an art exhibition at the Mailbox, and another one in the evening in Leamington. Whilst I was deciding on what snacks I should take, I got a ping on WhatsApp from Mick. The conversation can be summarised thus:

Mick: Do you have plans for tomorrow?

Me: Yes, but they can be changed.

Mick: Wanna come to watch me paint?

Me: They've changed.

I would be taking loads of photos for him painting, something I've occasionally done for him before. I would also be keeping an eye on his paints: where we were painting was in a busy part of the city centre, and over the years he has built up a good relationship with city officials; he didn't fancy the idea of losing it all in one go because a kid pinched a can and used it to tag a police car.

This was to start early afternoon, so on Saturday morning, I did a spot of hunting, then it was round to Mick's. Supplies were loaded into his car, whilst I was sent on a chocolate donut mission to Sainsbury's. Over the course of the weekend, I learned a lot about the essential equipment and supplies of a Mural Artist... who knew this would involve confectionery?

Eventually, we were ready to go. Unfortunately, Mick was unable to get a parking permit in time from the city council, but he was confident that he would be able to blag himself out of a ticket. It did help that he had a hi-viz jacket, and he had a waistcoat style one for me, which i somehow managed to get on. He parked on the area in front of the security hoardings, on what was effectively a paved peninsula, surrounded by double red lines.

And so we set about getting to work. A couple of businesses had secured large advertising hoardings to the boards. Mick knew these weren't permitted, as he knew the owners of the land, and he had been granted permission to paint all of the boards as he wished. Today, we were doing just one small section.

It was here that I learned about another valuable tool in the kit of the Mural Artist: a battery power drill with a variety of screw bits. It took a while, but eventually the hoarding panels were clear of the illegal vinyl.

...which had been covering the remnants of posters that had been stuck with glue that would make a certain gorilla say, "that's a bit much". Tip for the budding Mural Artist: include wallpaper spatulas in your essential tool box.

As Mick didn't have that, nor did he have long fingernails, I spent a goodly chunk of time picking the plastic-like posters off the board, then a goodly chunk of time picking the goodly chunks of poster fragments that were now splinters under my finger nails...

At last, we were ready to start. Or at least we would be, if the hoardings weren't OBS boards. They had been painted a few years back with white undercoat, but Mick needed the background to be black. He had a large pot of expensive black paint, of the sort that can coat pretty much everything. This does include OBS, although that did put up a valiant fight.

In an ideal world, the surface would have been rendered, making it smooth. If your mural is abstract, then you could save yourself all the hassle and just argue that it is all part of the art. Not so easy to make that case when you want to paint a nature scene, unless the scene is taking place on the north face of the Eiger.

The best that could be managed would be to follow Mick Jagger's advice and paint it black. The rough surface made all the shadows cast on the white paint very obvious; when black it wouldn't be so easily noticed. What is noticeable though, are all the speckled white parts that didn't get touched by the rollers.

So, Mick and I battled against the OBS for a long while. After a bit, I carried on alone, whilst Mick did a spot of trolling of passer-bys, by using his roller to create a rough cartoon rat holding a balloon, wearing an "I love Banksy" t-shirt.

And, over the course of the weekend, we did get a lot of people interested in what we were doing. This included a very friendly dog called Bear, a photographer who wanted to take a pic or several of Mick in front the partially black-painted boards, and numerous people asking if he was Banksy. Mick suggested that I should claim to be Robin Cunningham and he would be David Jones.

Painting the OBS took a long time, and Mick was concerned that we would run out of paint, so we concentrated more on the centre strip, and left the upmost and lowest lowest untouched, with a view to filling in those later if we still had paint.

Finally, Mick was satisfied with the right most panel, and started his doodle grid. He got me to try and fill in some of the troughs on my panels by thinning the paint. He got the last of my dregs of Pepsi Max, and tipped it in the paint. "Now, stir it like the paint has done you wrong".

Well, it had, as I could not believe how much splatter I had received. I looked like I had been bitten by a radioactive dalmation! One thorough stir later, and I was getting my revenge on the board that had been flicking paint at me for the past hour or so.

Mick, meanwhile, was doodling away to his hearts content. Once he had done that, I asked if I could have a go. So, one brief lesson on how to spray lines so it was faint and thin, I proceeded to unintentionally create the blockiest doodles known to man. I also tried doing my name in a cool way.

Emphasis on the word tried...

The stencil look wasn't intentional, it was more a case of me failing to draw a letter S cleanly, so I decided to just do faint dots as a makeshift serif, although it looked more like an exploding orange. How do the artists manage to make it look so easy???

I got back to using the roller, whilst Mick got out his phone. After playing around on his phone for a bit, it was time to sketch the first squirrel, the one playing peekaboo. Then, a bit more time on the phone, and then the second squirrel was outlined. Then back to the phone, and then it was time for the flowers

Someone had commented about why I was working, whilst he messed about on the phone. For those who don't know, here's how the doodle grid works...

You remember those colouring books we all had as kids? There was often a small picture on a grid, with a large blank grid next to it. You were encouraged to use that grid to help you draw a replica of the smaller picture in the larger grid. Some artists still use the regular grid method; they'll have a photo of the image they want to use, and paint onto a large grid that the artist has painted on the wall.

Doodle grids work in pretty much the same way, but instead of a square grid, they'll use squiggles, symbols, letters, numbers, and other nonsense. This will be photographed and loaded into a clever app. The final image will be superimposed on the doodle photograph, and after a bit of resizing and repositioning of the final image, the image is processed by the app and the artist is left with a slightly translucent image with the doodle visible behind it. This can now be used as a guide.

Mick told me that a lot of artists will spend several days getting the final image ready, with all elements in place before going on site to paint. He prefers to have a rough idea in his head, and cherry-pick the elements he wishes to use on the day, as he likes the freedom to move things around, be it for artistic reasons, or practical ones, such as available area has changed.

As the outlines gradually turned from squiggles to squirrels, and my arms more and more resembled a mutated measles outbreak, the interest from passers by also increased. I helped Mick by fielding the questions, and I used the SAC app to show the various interested parties some other examples of local art that Mick had a hand in.

Coventry was City of Culture a few years back, and many murals started appearing in and around the city. Mick and his team were behind the vast majority of these murals. Even if it wasn't one he painted, he was often the one organising the scissor lifts, or preparing the walls prior to the paint, such as the Dan Kitchener piece just behind this mural. The land that these boards are surrounding has always been ear-marked for development; Mick positioned Dan's mural so that it will still be visible after the building is completed.

As the afternoon slowly turned towards sunset, Mick raced on to try and get the outlines completed and a bit of coloured shading in place, to try and counter the taggers. Tagging of murals in Coventry isn't too much of an issue, but every now and then a work of art is vandalised, like what happened here.

Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often, and it seems that the better the mural is, the more likely it will be left alone. But, as we would be leaving it unguarded in the city centre on a Saturday night with lots of drunk people about, it was REALLY important that Mick took the mural to a decent point.

Speaking of drunk people, we had quite a few come over from the bar over the road. They were all very friendly and happy to chat to Mick about how good his work was. Mick was always polite in return, but I could sense that he was also thinking about the fading light!

Then, as he was doing some shading and I had stepped back to see how many more white spots the OBS was preventing me from filling in, I saw a traffic warden, on his mobile. I called Mick over, and when he was off the phone, I started to tell the warden about how Mick was behind a lot of the murals in the city.

That turned out to be unnecessary, as he and Mick had met numerous times before at all the other various murals around the city. So, they chatted for a bit before someone (a little bit worse for wear) came over from the pub over the road, being very defensive on Mick's behalf and offering to pay the parking fine. We thanked him, but said it wasn't necessary. It was all very sweet, but it did take a little bit for the message that we were alright to get through his tipsiness. The warden left, and then so did our knight in boozy armour, once he was finally assured we weren't going to be charged with anything.

And so Mick went back to his shading. My attempts at defeating the white speckles with the roller (now watered down even more) wasn't particularly great, so it was time to try spraying. Mick unfortunately didn't have any black spray paint with him, so tried using some very dark green. It kinda worked, but he decided to leave that until tomorrow, when he could grab some ebony and do a proper job. So he switched to a spot of shading of the squirrels, flowers and leaves. He said that he had a lot of different types of green, describing the contents of his bags as "Fifty Shades of Green", which I said would be something I'd watch.

Eventually, Mick was satisfied with how the mural was looking. He admitted that he would be nervous leaving it overnight, but he was certain "that if anyone did try anything, that lot over the pub would probably come over here and beat them up!"

It was now past sunset, and Mick wanted to wait a little longer, so he could get a decent photo of the mural as it was now. The paint he had chosen for the sketching shows up really well in bright sunlight or under street lights. But in the not-quite-dusk, it all looked very bland. Plus, the street lights weren't on. As the sun's rotation seemed to have stopped, we left. Mick went home, I picked up my car and went to a late night exhibition at a gallery in Leamington (what can I say... I'm a sucker for art!)

Afterwards, on the way home, I decided to make a detour to the mural, hoping to goodness I could park without having to pay. The taxi rank nearby... full. Plus, a fair few traffic wardens. Not worth the risk. Except, isn't that...?

"Hi! I don't know if you remember me, but I was helping Mick with the mural. I'd like to take a photo of it at night. Is it okay if I park next to it for a minute ir two?"

"Okay, but be quick"

"Will do, and thank you!"

And you know what? Mick was right about those outline colours when under a street light.

Sunday, and the plan was to meet him at the mural in the afternoon. So, my morning was spent doing a spot of hunting in the city centre, and then heading to Sainsbury's to get the snacks. When I got to the mural, there was a complete lack of Mick. So I sent him a message:

"If hazelnuts attract squirrels, what would be attracted to these types of nuts?"... and sent a photo of the chocolate ring donuts I'd just bought. Thirty seconds later, "I'm just getting in the car now! Air traffic control permitting, I'll be there in about five minutes!"

When he arrived, it was time to assess the state of the mural. Tag free, but the drying paint showed how much of the white OBS still needed properly painting. After Mick (finally) located his lucky screwdriver, I started a new battle of trying to prise the the lid off the paint pot (it really did not want to come off), and finally set about battling the OBS once more.

Mick had re stocked up his paints for today with plenty of reds and browns, plus the all important ebony...

...which turned out to be ebony BROWN! Personally, I couldn't see much difference between that and the black I had been using in the OBS war, but this is probably why I'm not an artist (that, and the complete inability to draw).

Ever the professional, Mick carried on without the black, and without too much swears either. Me, I refused to surrender, and continued my ongoing fight with the OBS, even though if I diluted the paint much more, it would take on homeopathic properties. I had now moved on to getting the parts deliberately left unpainted the day before... could I get those painted today?

One of the first encounters with passer-bys was when someone approached me and said, "Oh, please don't say you're painting over that lovely mural!"

I assured her that was definitely not the case, and introduced her to the art of Mick Batchelor. And that was how the afternoon progressed: as the colouring continued, more and more people took an interest in Mick's artwork. I would invite them to follow him on Instagram (@dynamickart, if you're interested) and on Facebook (Michael Batchelor).

I didn't want to rush Mick, but I was really hoping that he would finish it today. For one thing, I wanted to see the artwork through to the end, and I would be back at work on Monday. There were also jobs I needed to do in the evening. Mick was confident that he would finish today, but I was still a little concerned, remembering what happened last year.

It was Sunday afternoon, and I was just finishing wandering around all the tents at Art in the Park in Leamington, and ready to go home. And as I was walking past all the completed murals, I bumped into Mick. He was a bit late (no kidding; the festival finishes in a couple of hours), but wanted to quickly paint a mural, and "would you like to photograph it? I'll show you how quickly I can paint one!"

So, of course I stayed. And yes, he was fast. That angel was painted so very quickly... until he decided he was not satisfied with the nose. He must have spent a good 30 minutes painting and repainting that nose. I reckon Joan Rivers spent less time having her nose reshaped!

To say that Mick is a bit of a perfectionist is rather like saying that the ocean is a little bit damp. But that is probably why his artwork is so good! Still, when you're clock watching and the nose switches from Roman to Slightly Pointy, and you're hoping the Royal Priors car park will still be open, it's all too easy for you to silently will him to finish...

Back to the present, and that isn't an issue here. After going through Fifty Shades of Brown (and no, that's not a film I want to watch), Mick declares that he is really happy with the shading on Peekaboo Squirrel. And I have to agree; I'm not sure it could have looked better. The colours in the eyes, even though the black there is ebony brown, really worked well.

And so it was on to the next squirrel. Mick did have a new problem to contend with though: he had been using paint number 94. Apparently, there is something about this paint that means that no matter how careful you are with it, your finger that operates the cap WILL be coated with paint. I suggested gloves, but this diminishes the finger sensitivity, making it harder to do a really light touch, which is essential for whiskers.

Also, this particular paint doesn't wipe off the finger easily, which leads to the biggest problem: the touch sensitive screen on the phone (which has the photo showing all the shading you'll need) doesn't detect where your finger is touching.

Still, he was able to carry on without threatening the phone too much, and the mural gradually took shape. At one point, the traffic warden from Saturday turned up, and I once again thanked him for turning that blind eye the night before.

It was getting close to 5 pm, the time that I had told myself that I had to be home by in order to get all my jobs done. I then overruled that, and decided to stop until the end. What I hadn't done was check what time my car park was closing. I looked online... half five.

Oh.

I excused myself, and made a dash to get the car, lest I find myself explaining to my boss on Monday why I was late... Car retrieved, I parked up next to Mick, and hoped to goodness that his parking blagging skills extended to two cars.

When I got back, I saw that not only that the second squirrel finished, but one of the flowers was also beautifully radiant. He was now doing a lot of back and forth between all the elements of the mural, adding a bit more colour and shading here and there.

And then two new traffic wardens turned up; and they were making notes about our cars when I saw them. I called Mick over, and mentally crossed my fingers that Mick was still at Peak Blag level, as we approached them.

Turns out that Mick is definitely a handy person to have around when you're not exactly parked where you should be. We chatted for a bit, but this time without any inebriated Samaritans popping over from the pub. Given the periodic cheers we were hearing across the road, I think they were all watching Cov play on the telly.

After they left, it was back to the painting. I had long since decided to call a truce with the OBS. I'd stop hitting the board with the roller, if it would stop revealing any more white specks of unpainted surface. Mick was doing the finishing touches to the mural, and I just kept on taking photos.

Finally, a step back to do a once over of the mural, identify the parts of the heavy-handed doodle grid that were still showing (sorry!) and try to get them covered up.

Then, he decided it was time to sign his name. He'd completed it, and before sunset! Unfortunately, it had been overcast all day, so no strong sunlight to see the colours stand out. But it still looked very impressive!

We packed up, which included putting the lid back on the paint pot. Despite how much it wanted to remain on there this morning, it now refused to close. I'm not sure why Mick wanted that pot of highly diluted paint, unless he wanted to use it for water colours? Anyway, he showed me what to do. He put the open pot in a carrier bag, placed it on the ground, and rested the lid on top. Then he stamped on the lid, which put it in the closed position for about a nanosecond before the lid ended up resting at the bottom of the pot.

"Well, that's new," he said.

He sealed the bag, and packed away his cans and ladders. Finally, we went our respective ways. Later that evening, I popped back, to get that all important street-lamp lit photo.

And you know what? Mick was also right about how bright all the colours looked under street lights!