KiwiRail - Railway corridor beautification

Late last year KiwiRail kicked off their pilot project for Auckland railway beautifications.
Along with other artists, my design was chosen, as one of 6 to kick of this initiative. The railway corridor is known as a graffiti hotspot and by commissioning arttist to beautify these spaces with murals, the hope is to curb tagging and give the communities something beautiful and vibrant to look at, whilst also spreading awareness around safety around the railway. 
My design incorporated some favorite birds and flowers from across New Zealand, along with bold colours and patters to fill out the space along the safety messages in a bold, graffiti-like font.
The site I applied my design to is the one nearest to my home. Being able to help beautify and uplift the local community was a privilege and I hope my design will resonate with the community passing it by on their way to work or school. 
KiwiRail hopes to do more of these to uplift communities, and I for one fully support spreading more art and joy through the city!

This project was a bit of a monster really. And I didn't really realise that until our first day on site. Site visits was a bit hard to come by, as this site is right next to the railway tracks, so getting an RPO organized to come and take you for a quick site visit is, uhm...difficult. So quoting and estimating time frames are all done via a few photographs, or 'drive-bys', neither of which gives you the reality of what a 4 metre high, 160 metre long concrete wall, with uneven walking surface along it, and being 5 metres from a live train line, really feels like. Or the logistics required to actually paint at such a site...
The walk from where you can park to where you start painting is a good 150 plus metres itself. Carrying paint. And water. And anything else you might need, because walking that 150 metres is on rough terrain. The first week after walking that my feet were throbbing and I discovered I had muscles in my feet that I didn't know I had before!! Safety boots to work with is a MUST!! 
And once you are at the site, with an RPO (Railway Protection Officer) in tow, one realise that 4 metres is a whole heck of a lot taller in real life than in a photograph.
Due to the uneven surface, my optimistic thought of using a Mobile Scaffold, was quickly squashed. A ladder would have to do. But only a Fibreglass one. But wait, we don't know if our permit allows that yet. No, we have to wait until the trains have an offline 'block off' for maintenance and then we can use scaffold (not a mobile one) or a ladder.
So for the first two weeks we did what we could with the bottom section of wall. And when I say we, I mean myself and an apprentice and for about a week even Edgar joined in.
The weather was not our friend for a while and then it was and then it wasn't. We only had 6 weeks to complete this and at least 20% of that time it was raining. 
It certainly was a challenging project. One I am extremely happy to have done and finished. I have learned a lot and I look forward to the next  challenge!
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