Andy Council

The street artist who turns city skylines into dinosaurs

How do you plan your work?

I like to have an idea of the size and shape of where I’m painting, so that I can get the piece to fit well in the space. I spend a lot of time researching images to work from, and I work out the colours I want to use in Photoshop. I start my murals by putting a background layer of emulsion up and then marking out the lines of the design using spray paint. I work out the scale by hand, which can be tricky, but I have a bit of an eye for it now.

How do you make sure your work stands out?

My style is quite unique in the way that I create animals made up of lots of smaller elements. I always think of the surrounding area to where I’ll be painting when I do my pieces. I study buildings and landmarks from the local area, and think of an animal that might be relevant and fit the space nicely. This often gets people who live locally on board, and makes my work recognisable.

What’s been your most challenging piece so far?

All of the really big walls that I painted last year have been challenging. Working out how much paint would be needed, getting the scale correct over several levels and executing the work with the use of different access equipment, such as cherry pickers and scaffold, has been tricky.

I think the hardest one was the Ice Cream Dragon that I painted on a huge wall in Birmingham for the City Of Colours festival. I managed to paint it in a couple of days working non-stop using a very wonky ladder. I was pretty wiped out for a whole week after though!