Working on a mural at Knox Church in Invercargill are (from top) Polly Kavanagh, Shiloh Waddell, Craig Waddell and Kirsten Erasmus.PHOTO: TONI MCDONALD
After spending hours preparing the artwork's foundations, artist Tania Russell left volunteers to finish the 18sqm mural in her absence, while she returned home to Katikati for a holiday break with her family.
Russell had been attending the church for the past three years while completing her nursing degree at the Southern Institute of Technology.
Knox parish clerk Michael Broad said church elders had approached Russell to design a mural to go on the wall to greet visitors to the church's holiday cafe and deter tagging and graffiti.
The church leadership had the idea of a mural about a year ago.
"We knew Tania was a very good cartoonist and we sort of thought if she wanted to pick it up when she had time for it."
Russell said she wanted to create something that was "truly Kiwi".
"I think we should celebrate who we are really, because there's too much negative stuff out in the media and I wanted a good message out there, something sort of fun and light, something we can enjoy.
"I thought native birds, because they're beautiful and sort of represent the people, like all different types of birds, but we're all one."
She also included native foliage as well as "some ugly and beautiful" elements into her design.
"They gave me carte blanche to do whatever and just come back with an idea, and that's what I came back to them with."
Russell needed to match design elements up with the four crates of small tins and test pots of paint left over from the South Alive mural.
Mr Broad said South Alive had made a significant contribution to the Knox artwork by giving the paint.
In the midst of studies, graduation, and after an exceptionally late night, the painting guidelines were drafted on to the wall.
"It was a crazy last week before I left because I've just graduation as a RN [registered nurse]. So that last week I had the wall to prepare, get all the pen lines in and do graduation all in one week before I was heading back home for family.
"So I had some late nights. I was actually penning that all in until about 1 or 1.30 in the morning."
"I was praying to make it through the showers so it would dry so I could at least get the pen marks on so that people could start painting it while I was away."
She had been watching the progress via social media and was looking forward to finishing the artwork when she returned at the end of the month.
- By Toni McDonald
