It’s a chance to draw on the walls

Forget everything your mother taught you. This weekend your wall drawing desires will finally be satisfied when a blank mural opens to the crayon-wielding public for colouring.

Dside, aka artist Damin Radford Scott, is spending several days drawing an outline on a massive 20 metre long canvas in a corridor of New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki museum.

On Saturday the mural will open to the public, with the free colouring session between 10am and 2pm.

Puke Ariki marketing and communications manager Polly CatlinMaybury said it was an interactive way for the public to engage with the ‘Home Work: Taranaki Art 2017’ exhibition of locally produced art.

‘‘The idea is they use this as one massive colouring book,’’ she said.

Radford Scott said the mural would take him up to five days to finish.

‘‘I think that’s what takes longer, deciding what’s next being drawn.’’

He said there are social comments woven into the art and he had no pre-set idea about the colour scheme.

‘‘There’s a lot of layers to it. They can take it how they want it.’’

‘‘I’m just seeing it in black and white.’’

It is the fourth or fifth time he had drawn artwork to be coloured in by others, but ‘‘this is by far the biggest’’.

He was also glad they were using environmentally-friendly crayons and no plastic.

There is no finish to the work, he said.

‘‘It always can be coloured in a bit more.’’

The artwork may be opened again if it does not all get done, Catlin-Maybury said.

The art will stay in the corridor until the end of the Home Work exhibition.

‘‘I draw on a lot of walls but most people don’t, so that’s really cool to let other people have a chance to do it,’’ Radford Scott said.