Murals, Street View of

I wish I could show you photos of the "finally finished" murals that I've spent most of this blog rabbiting on about, but unfortunately, getting my Mural group together has been a logistics nightmare. How difficult can it be to organise three people?! Well, very difficult, apparently. (To T. and &., I'm sorry. I know you both are really busy too, but I'll try to get us all together again somehow.)

Anyway, I can't show you any new mural photos... or can I?

You may have heard all the hoopla about Google Maps' Street View application invading people's privacy, and all that whatnot, but thanks to this innovative program, I can show you exactly how the murals look!
Go to the Australian Street View site, and type in this address: 7 Christian Street, Boolarra, Victoria, Australia 3870. Or, try this link. Your PC needs to be reasonably high-powered in order to use this site; it just barely works on mine.
This now solves my earlier question of whether the Title/Stump Mural has been installed yet (it has). And you can clearly see where the Lest We Forget mural has wound up.
You can rotate the camera in any direction, and move along the road to get a better view of the murals. You can zoom in for a closer look of the murals if you like, though I personally think that you find better pictures right here!

Also, see if you can spot all of the murals that were installed on Rutherglen Road in Newborough, postcode 3825... There used to be more of them, but some have been removed (or have fallen off - whoops).

More "Lest We Forget"

Okay, I meant to put these with the other mural posts, but I forgot that I had them. These are close-ups of the letters of "Lest We Forget" from the first installed mural for Boolarra. Click on any of the images to view the larger version. You can zoom in on the images in the Picasa viewer to see the finer detail.

L= Lone Soldier · E= Boer War
S= World War I · T= World War II


W= Women's wartime contribution · E= World War II (?)



F= Flight/Aviation · O= Korean War · R= Returning Soldiers
G= Vietnam War · E= Vietnam War · T= Gulf War/Present day

I painted the first T, the W, and parts of the last E.
Apologies for the poor quality of some of these images (eg. flash bounceback) but they were taken with a pre-digital camera, and we didn't have the luxury of seeing how the pictures turned out before we developed them.
If you are the artist of any of these, and want credit for your work, please post a comment or contact me otherwise.

More Murals

Here's some more pictures of the murals from the same project. All of these are for Boolarra as well, and some of them have already been finished and installed. There's still a couple of other single-panel images that need finishing, and I'll include those later.

This was the first mural to go up on the wall. I've included a copy of the local newspaper article written after the presentation ceremony.
Each letter of the words "Lest We Forget" contains images related to different periods in Australian military history. For instance, the S is based on WWI, the G is from the Vietnam War, the W is dedicated to the contribution of women in wartime, etc.

This piece was intended to replace the existing nameplate on the Boolarra Memorial Hall. I don't know if it actually has been installed in that place, but I will find out the next time I go out that way.
It's a scene reminiscent of the bushland around the town, featuring some of the local vegetation and fauna. The tree stump in the foreground continues the Army Memorial theme.

And these are some of the single-panel works. This one illustrates Boolarra's history in dairy farming, an industry typical of most of Gippsland. Dairy cattle are a common sight around the valley; this panel shows what a dairy farm of the region might have looked like in the past.

This panel depicts the local logging industry. Boolarra is set in deep bushland, and for most of last century they had a thriving timber trade, and this panel illustrates what what it might have looked like in the late 1800s.

This was based on a photograph of a local who went to war early last century - I turned it into a rough composite figure, an "everyman" meant to represent all those who served in the armed forces.



Note: These paintings were the work of several people, NOT just myself. I only painted the Lone Soldier, portions of Lest We Forget and (teeny tiny parts) of the Memorial hall sign.
If any of the other artists are reading this, and want credit for their work, please write a comment or send me an email. The same applies for any of the artists who want photos of the stuff they painted.

There are more single-panel murals, and of course the Train Mural, which we will complete over the next few months (depending on our availability). More pix will come!