Wrapping up 2025 with lots of artistic wall murals

This year has been a busy one, and I am so grateful for all the wonderful clients and projects I was able to be a part of. From my largest commercial mural yet - the 160m railway corridor wall in Henderson - to my largest private mural, this year was full of challenges, new learning and joyful finishes!
Being able to spend my days painting or drawing is still a bit of a dream to me, and whenever I work alongside some of the school students on a project and they ask me if I get to draw and paint for work, I am reminded of what an immense blessing it is to be able to say "yes". Their little faces always light up and joyous expressions of "I want to be an artist oneday" fills my heart with warmth and gladness that I am able to live out my childhood dream. Of course, they're not particularty interested in the logistics or the admin involved with running an art studio, but even these moments are still a joy most of the time. 
This year I learned that sometimes even our biggest dreams come true, even when we are scared that it may actually happen and when we stand up and face up to those big dreams in spite of our fears of it, we can achieve many great things. At the end of last year I entered a design for consideration to be used on the railway corridor. I didn't fully realise the scale of the project and once I've submitted my design and tried to visualize the size of the wall, I felt a sense of dread that my design may actually be chosen. And it was. And I was kind of petrified that I may not be able to actually complete what I had set out to do, simply because I had never done it before on such a large scale. But with some encouragement from my family and some planning I managed to get myself hyped up enough to know that somehow I WILL do it. Long story short, I managed to get my design onto the wall, although I had to slightly alter it to be able to get it onto the wall in the limited time we had access to the railway corridor, and I could proudly say I completed my biggest mural yet early in the year.
Looking back on it there are elements I wish I did different, others I am very happy and proud of, and overall a sense of relief that it is done.
I completed a couple of canvas paintings for clients in between and completed a couple of in-studio mural panel projects for schools as well. And I illustrated three different picture books! I realised I still have a lot to learn and improve on when coming to illustrations for picture books, and I am hoping to get something going on this side of things a bit more in the coming year. I managed to create on large canvas painting just for myself, experimenting with a different painting technique and just having fun. I completed a walkway mural on a fence and worked with a couple of different schools and their students to create meaningful art for the schools. 
Great Barrier Island was a great place to visit for the first time and working alongside the tamariki during a school holiday program to create a fun and colourful mural on their basketball court was a wonderful experience. Having my eldest daughter Kayla spend her time with me as an intern as part of her high school education was another highlight for the year and she painted one mural panel all by herself, as well as designed another mural for another school, created an album cover for a local NZ musician and created a custom doodle backpack as part of her intership.
I also added some new products for sale on my website, added some onto the Felt website and continue to design more merchandise.
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There are still some projects in progress, but for now we are taking a much deserved rest and will be back to work just before the new year!
If you're ready to turn your own space into a custom artwork, get in touch now for space in 2026!