Echline Primary School – Queensferry Crossing Mural
South Queensferry, a town ten miles west of Edinburgh and already world famous for its Forth Road and Forth Rail Bridges, entered a new phase in its history in 2017 when a third bridge was built on the Firth of Forth.
Prepping the palettes for the children to start painting.Chris sketching out the mural’s outline using reference photos and a paper design.Chris introducing the project to a new class of children, using the design drawing as reference.
Local school Echline Primary already had an interior bridge mural which had been on site for more than twenty years. It was very well executed, much loved and had stood the test of time, but it was now a bridge short and it was deemed time for a new version. The old mural was careful taken down and hopefully it will be preserved in some form for the school’s archives.
Chris entertaining some of the school children with his witty banter.
The school wanted a crowd mural as they were really inspired by some of my past work, but with the added feature of having the kids helping to build it.
The mural starts to take shape; laid out on the floor for a better overview.The Burry Man, the central figure in South Queensferry’s annual Burryman’s Parade, also features in the mural.
South Queensferry has a famous annual town ‘Ferry Fair’ so I decided to base the mural on that for crowd vibrancy, and have the three bridges in the background. I produced a drawing that would steer the whole project, which was approved by the school ahead of the project launch.
The Victorian Forth Rail Bridge looms over South Queensferry.The kids painted themselves into the mural, creating a permanent moment in time for the school and the Queensferry Crossing event.
On the Friday before the mural started, I presented at a school assembly where I introduced myself and my work, and showed the children some of my videos.
The foreground of the painting focuses on the annual Ferry Fair and features some famous local buildings.The finished mural installed in the school.A panoramic view of the finished mural.
During the week of the project I worked with all the children from primary one through primary seven. The idea was that some of the children would paint themselves into the painting while others worked on the buildings and background. The mural evolved throughout the week and I painted alongside the children to help continually steer the picture towards its vision. It was all done and dusted in a week. I heard reports from the teachers that the kids were delighted to work with “Mr Hat”. Many of them learnt top hat spinning as a byproduct of my residency.
Coverage of the project in the Edinburgh Evening News.
The mural was also featured in an article in the Edinburgh Evening News as part of the school’s celebration of the new bridge.
Last year I spent time painting various spots in The Three Sisters, a famous pub on Edinburgh’s Cowgate. The venue was named after the three Mackinnon sisters Cath, Kitty, and Maggie, famous in the 1740s for gracing Edinburgh stages with their singing, dancing and beauty. It is a large complex of bars, and inside this network of rooms is housed Edinburgh’s Student Union Bar.
The Three Sisters asked me back this year to further improve the Student Union. This time I took on a tired and bedraggled looking corridor which before I arrived, wouldn’t have looked out of place in a 1970s office block. They wanted some new artwork that was very Edinburgh-themed, would energise the space, and had some relevance to the diverse university students who frequent the space.
The main wall in the corridor now has an impressionist vista of Edinburgh with the castle illuminated by the world famous bi-annual fireworks display.
I took the artwork onto the ceiling as well as the walls in order to give the area an immersive feel. As the scene moved further away from the firework end of the corridor, the idea was to give it a ‘starry night’ / Van Gogh inspired look. The ThreeSisters also had me paint the walls at the far end with notable university buildings from around the city.
On a completely different theme, The Three Sisters asked me to reflect the Cowgate location of the bar in another mural. The venue is surrounded by a maze of vaulted arches that hold the buildings of the area up, and so I painted a map to the vaults under George IV Bridge with a pop art/brightly coloured feel.
The whole job was done to deadline in under a week, just after the Edinburgh Festival finished but before the onslaught of students for Freshers Week.
Fingers crossed it will keep the students happy and ultimately lead to increased footfall through the door – always the mark of a successful project for me!
George Watson’s College Upper Primary School Murals
In 2016 Junior School Headmaster George Salmond and I began discussing a potential project at George Watson’s College; he was really keen to have murals in the school that reflected the energy and enthusiasm of the current children. The plan was to work with Primary Four through Seven, ideally with all the children participating hands-on in the project.
A mockup of the World War II evacuees illustration superimposed in the stairwell. A mockup of the Viking illustration superimposed above the existing tiles in the stairway.
Drawing directly from the school’s curriculum, each of the year groups were given their own historic theme; the Primary Fours learn about Vikings, the Primary Fives study the Battle of Bannockburn and the Wars of Independence, Primary Six learn about the Jacobite Rising and Primary Seven approach World War II as seen through the eyes of evacuees.
A mockup of the Jacobites illustration superimposed in the stairwell.
A mockup of the Battle of Bannockburn illustration superimposed in the stairwell.
I have previously done group projects with large amounts of children and I think it’s really important that all the children are involved and that they are empowered to express themselves as a small part of a bigger picture.
I created four illustrations that would provide clarity and focus to the project, and came up with a plan so that the mural could be built remotely in bite sized chunks by the children and then fastened to the wall at a later date. Working in a school staircase which is also a chief fire escape route had unforeseen complications; understandably strict fire regulations meant that I had to ditch my usual plywood support and buy magnesium oxide fireproof sheet material, and once finished a fire-rated varnish had to be applied. Every day is a school day!
Chris giving the first of two assemblies to the Upper Primary School, where he introduced the project to the students. At left are some of the boards from his Hogmanay mural.
The project was launched at two special assemblies where I introduced myself and my work, and I showed them my Hogmanay video. I emphasised the ambition and scale of the project but also underlined that the plan was to make all four murals in an incredibly short period of time. The aim was to have them built from scratch and installed in a three week period, dancing around the school timetable and the children were super excited.
Chris prepping boards in Mr. Briggs’ classroom; at left you can see one of the time lapse cameras which were used throughout the project to capture the progression of the murals. Some of the ‘Evacuees’ mural in mid-production in Mr. Briggs’ classroom.
In week one I was given the use of Mr. Briggs’ primary six classroom which was available while the whole year was away on a trip. Over the course of that week three of the murals had their backs broken. The children were shipped in class by class and though to the untrained eye the production process seemed slightly chaotic, in fact the children were incredibly productive. The focus of the drawings and my urgency for them to visually communicate as fast as possible helped drive the project forward. Throughout the project my studio manager Sheila Masson was on site helping to corral the kids and prep the paint and materials. She has an illustration degree amongst her many skills so is well versed in painting, though at times the energy and craziness of the factory we had set up proved a bit wearing on her.
Chris explaining correct usage of paint brushes and palettes. This saved countless brushes from being destroyed, aided in more sensitive painting, and helped keep palettes from becoming nondescript vegetable soup. Chris demonstrating how to paint chainmail on soldiers in the Battle of Bannockburn mural.
The primary six students were due back from their trip at the end of the first week so we moved the production base out of Mr. Briggs’ classroom and into the art department with the help of a class full of strong-looking primary sevens.
Teachers and students painting portraits in the Battle of Bannockburn mural.
Occasionally more paint went on the students than on the boards…
During the second week we had the huge help of the art department staff. They had allocated two classrooms as a production base for the murals which was fantastic. It allowed us to have a space where one of the murals could be laid out in its entirety on the floor (so that we and the kids could literally see the big picture), and another that functioned as the main production base with individual boards laid on tables for painting.
Sharing paint palettes and keeping the colours separate to prevent vegetable soup from forming.
By the end of the second week the children had nearly finished the murals, so much so that we had to start some smaller projects to keep them busy. With the help of the art department and a huge roll of white paper, we set up a large-scale drawing in the art department lobby plus four mural boards of self portraits by all the children sorted into their respective school houses.
One of the two huge paper murals set up in the art department lobby as overflow/satellite projects.
By the time we reached the end of week three, all my anxiety was focussed around the difficulty of getting the mural hung. The stairwells are nearly eight metres tall so the initial plan was to source a boom lift to help with the hanging. In the end my assistant Charlie Savin and I managed to hang the pictures over three intense days from a scaffold tower – we were under something of a deadline as we had to complete the hang over the midterm break, while no kids were on the premises.
The children exploring the stairwells on the unveiling day after their half term break.
Sheila and I were there when the children came back to school on the Thursday morning and there was a huge amount of excitement. All the children felt the accomplishment and pride of being a part of a big community project. The project goals had been achieved and the children had left a legacy in the stairwell as testimony to their effort. As I had said throughout, not all projects grind at the speed of evolution. In this case change came like a creative tsunami. The stairwells are now resplendent in a new coat of vibrant age-appropriate artwork that will hopefully inspire generations to come.
Chris in front of the Jacobite mural at the end of the project.
As with all of my projects, every step was filmed and time lapsed. Click HERE to see the final video of the murals’ creation.
And finally – the finished murals, pieced together:
The finished Viking mural.The finished Jacobite mural.The finished Battle of Bannockburn mural.The finished evacuees mural, surrounding the original mosaic map.
2017 was brought in with a bang – by playing in the Kirkwall Ba’.
All photos by Sheila Masson, unless otherwise indicated.
The Ba’ is a town-consuming obsession that possesses the capital of Orkney over the festive period. Where other Scottish towns are fixated on Santa and Hogmanay, the excitement building in Kirkwall revolves around the twice-annual Ba games which envelop the town on both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Doors and windows in Kirkwall are boarded up in anticipation of the Ba.
Upon entering the town, the first thing you notice is that every window, door and fence is fortified at chest height with robust planks. Girded for battle, these literally prevent windows and doors from exploding under the pressure from the bodies of scores of men.
Custom-made planks are carefully labelled for repeated use on the same buildings, year after year.
The Ba is a version of medieval football with recognisable elements of traditional rugby, and its players are the men of the town. There was a women’s game in the 1940s but it was short lived as it proved too violent. There are two games played; one for men and one for boys (up to age 15).
Directions are shouted by fellow team members perched atop a shop wall on the main street.
The rules of the game are simple. The two teams are known as the “Uppies” and the “Doonies”, with the player’s allegiance originally decided by whether he was born up or “doon” the “gate” (road). The ba itself is a beautiful custom-made leather medicine ball that is thrown into a maul of players by the winner of the game from 25 years previous. From that point there is no referee and no rules, save that the two teams self-police and have two distinct goals; the Uppies to touch the ba against a wall at the top of the town, and the Doonies must get it into the sea.
The ba – a handmade, cork-filled, leather ball. Photo: Wikipedia
Once the ba has reached either of these points, the battle’s focus suddenly changes and becomes an internal struggle amongst the successful team to declare one of their players the winner and the recipient of that year’s ba. The players will battle amongst themselves to award the ba to a worthy recipient; one who has put years of service into earning this round, leather trophy.
The winning of a ba will be one of the greatest days of their lives, and wives and girlfriends are in no doubt as to the importance of this achievement as winners have been known to sleep with their ba for months after the game.
Some of my extended Orkney family, photographed in Kirkwall in the summer of 2016. Photo courtesy of the Rutterford Family.
Orkney winters are cold so fathers sometimes have many children, but not all will win their Ba.
I have a strong Orkney heritage on my father’s side; my paternal grandmother was one of six indomitable sisters who each sired a prodigious litter of offspring. This has resulted in a host of cousins both in the Northern Isles of Westray and Papa Westray but also in Kirkwall. I occasionally find them leaping out from behind random bushes to explain our bloodline during my visits up from Edinburgh.
My cousins, the infamous Rendall Sisters; (clockwise from top left:) Ellie, Anna, Georgie and Sally, with my beard applied to each of them. Photo: Chris Rutterford.
One of my dad’s first cousins, Muriel Rendall, has four daughters and one son; George Rendall. George himself has produced four daughters, and despite generations of female tempering, George has stayed very much in touch with his masculine side, winning his own ba twenty years ago this year. Despite the fact he is now well over 50, and the ba is definitely a young mans game, George still plays every year. His wife Katherine listens to the explanations as to why the next will be his last with a rueful smile, as each successive year he hauls his shirt on, straps on his steel-toed boots, and heads down to the main street once again.
George Rendall, Doonie men’s Ba winner in 1997. Photo courtesy George Rendall.Chris’s cousin, Uppie Kit Bichan, celebrating winning the 2008 New Year’s Day Boy’s Ba. Photo courtesy Wilma Bichan.
When I was ten, George told me all about this century-old Orkney game and in my young mind it was the most exotic, ridiculous and spectacular game that I had ever heard of. I arranged games of class-on-class no rules ‘foul football’, played with a flat and exhausted ball – until our sport was eventually banned due to a nasty wrist break.
In 2003 I finally played for the first time, fulfilling a decades-long ambition. I may have been fourteen years younger then, but I’d also been laid low by the norovirus, gifted to me over Christmas dinner, I suspect an extra treat concealed in one of the colourful crackers.
I spent four days on the couch with a bucket at my side, losing pounds of muscle and several stones in man-fat in the process. On the journey up from Edinburgh, I had curled up in the rear seat of my brother’s car with my future wife Fiona. When we got to our digs, I turned the bathroom in my Auntie Muriel’s bed and breakfast into a small corner of hell, with my bum on the throne and my head in the sink, heaving long past the point of pointlessness.
The 2003 game lasted six and a half hours, and despite a valiant effort, we lost. We got stuck in a petrol station forecourt for several hours and it grew dark. Eventually we were marched forcibly, reluctantly tripping backwards up the road to defeat at the Uppie’s wall.
This experience made a big impression on me.
A telltale sign of team allegiance on a player’s socks.
The Ba both unites and divides the community of Kirkwall in equal measure and in our family alone we have some cousins who are Doonies and some who are Uppies. Wilma Bichan, George’s sister, has a mix of Doonie and Uppie sons. One of whom, Kitt (an Uppie son) won a boy’s trophy. As I came in by sea (via the ferry) I play alongside some of my cousins with the Doonies.
Girls enjoying the spectacle of the Ba from the warmth and safety of a first floor window on Main Street.
I find it fascinating how this seemingly insane sporting event bonds the town so tightly and seems to forge a communal spirit that is quite unlike any other. The passion is muscular and infectious.
In the summer of 2016 while I was up in Orkney visiting relatives, I spotted an Orkney Islands Council pamphlet asking for ideas for potential improvements to their urban landscape. This was like a clarion call for me. They may have meant benches or street lights but that’s not what I had in mind.
A small section of my Bannockburn mural, installed at the Battle of Bannockburn Visitors Centre in Stirling.
Ever since playing in my first game, it has been an ambition to paint the Ba, and in my mind I have been building towards it. My career over the last few years has focussed on painting intense crowd scenes, beginning with my 2010 Jacobite Stramash painting, moving on to my epic 22 metre long Tam o’Shanter mural, the Edinburgh Hogmanay, the Joy of the Goal at Ibrox Stadium, the Battle of Bannockburn and many more. My emphasis has been on building massive, ambitious paintings that allow real people to contribute photo reference and to celebrate community-uniting events and joyful parties, both contemporary and historic.
Putting the finishing touches on the Flying Scotsman mural in Galashiels in 2016. Photo courtesy Phil Wilkinson / www.philspix.co.uk
The goal is that these paintings should create spaces which reflect community spirit and a collective humanity; a reaction against the proliferation of the idea that community does not exist. I paint manifesto artefacts that prove the opposite; jaw-dropping in scale, intensity and life. Over the last few years I have consistently stepped up the ambition and scale of the paintings that I make. The locations of these pictures have grown from restaurants, bars and museums to now including town centres and public art. My belief is that if you can build a virtual party, it is a small step to an actual gathering in the space next to it. My pictures create environments which feel busy and vibrant, adding atmosphere to previously quiet spaces. Several clients have remarked on the increase of footfall and business since my work was installed on their premises – job done!
The Hogmanay mural during its installation in the Tron Kirk on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile during the 2013 Edinburgh Festival.
From the outset, the Ba’ was a picture that I wanted to paint. The nature of these murals means that they take a huge amount of time and energy on my part, painting the likenesses of thousands of souls can leave me feeling like I’ve been emotionally mown down by a tour bus and dragged along the tarmac for months. Stories that have personal and emotional significance for me just makes the effort much easier to rationalise.
After I found the pamphlet, I made contact with the Orkney Island Council and we have had initial tentative discussions. Whilst there is enthusiasm on both sides, there are a large number of hurdles to jump over in order to make this happen.
Nevertheless, I used the potential mural-making opportunity as a pretext for playing the game again. I convinced my wife Fiona that at the age of 43, it was imperative that we head up to Kirkwall in late December through typical howling gales for the game.
Can we call it players provenance? If I don’t put my body on the line why should I get the shot?
We also took along my studio manager Sheila Masson who is an experienced and bloodthirsty photojournalist, in order to take reference photographs whilst I was otherwise occupied with the game.
The eerily empty streets of Kirkwall, minutes before the two teams begin their march into the centre of town.
This year, the New Year’s Day game was delayed until Monday, January 2nd as the Ba is never played on the sabbath. George took myself and his daughter Ellie’s fiancee Ben to a Doonie house to get ready, and there I met my cousin Devo MacPherson again for the first time since 2003. He’d been wearing his lucky Arran jumper last time we met, but he said it was long since discarded; “Must have shrunk’, he proclaimed, apparently nothing to do with the foot of lateral muscle he’d put on in the past decade.
The life cycle of my ingenious but ultimately useless improvised shin pads: 1) Fresh cardboard before the Ba. 2) After the Ba – boots still duct taped to my trews. 3) Cardboard tubes reduced to a soggy papier mâché mess. Sadness. Photos: Chris Rutterford.
I had omitted to bring any shin pads with me, optional protection in the brutal scrum. There were some raised eyebrows at my ingenious plan of splitting Highland Park whisky packaging tubes round my lower legs. The local distillery may be good for the tourists but sadly, given 30 minutes in the event, my improvised shin pads had all the protective properties of sweaty papier-mâché.
Using duct tape to keep our boots on.A small tribe of Doonies making our way into town for the start of the Ba.
We strapped our boots on with duct tape to stop them from deserting our feet, and along with a keyed-up gang of Doonie foot soldiers, we made our way through the residential streets to the rallying pub in the centre of Kirkwall. This time around I definitely noticed the youth and vigour of some of the other players, but using the applied stupidity which I’ve honed to a keen edge, I resolved to forcefully ignore it.
Handshakes for each player as we enter the Doonie’s traditional watering hole before the Ba.
As they entered the bar, every player was greeted with a hundred approving handshakes as he crossed the threshold; more meat for the grinder. Some swilled a restorative nip of whisky, while all filled their gut with water, and then the team marched en masse up the Main Street already filled with spectators, meeting the steely horde of Uppies in the shadow of St. Magnus Cathedral.
The crowds start to gather in front of St. Magnus Cathedral; by the start of the Ba this area will be filled.
Onlookers lined the wall in front of the cathedral, leaning out of first floor windows, perched on the protective wooden barriers, spying familiar faces in the throng and shouting words of encouragement to their teams.
The Uppies march into town to face their rivals.
We were ready but in no doubt that the Uppies meant business. The Christmas game had seen a freak event totally at odds with the norm. The ba tapped down to a Doonie sprinter, who managed to run it to the sea without a finger laid on him. All over inside 15 minutes, without battle joined in earnest. After a year’s wait it was something of an anticlimax.
The Doonies marching up from the harbour; 1997 Ba winner George Rendall is visible in the centre in yellow and Chris and his cousin Nicky Bichan are at far right.Spectators wait on the street and in upstairs windows for the Ba to start.After the ba lurches down Main Street and away from the Mercat Cross (visible in the background), spectators wait to see where it will go next.
The game begins with the “throw up” – when the ba is hurled from the Mercat Cross into the seething mass of men, thrown by the winner from 25 years before. In this case it was a white bearded man with more than a hint of Kringle about him. As fate would have it when he threw it in, the ba landed just above my head – a gift! So I claimed it from amongst a sea of hands above my head and tucked the parcel in my gut, like I was on a rugby pitch. It wasn’t quite like that.
After the “throw up”, the players scrabble for the ba.
The pressure from the first squeeze forced the large ba into the area where I primarily keep my beer belly – an organ-rearranging and nauseating feeling quite unlike any I have ever felt before. I lasted about two minutes before I was obliged to push it round my pelvis and edge it back to members of my team. It was a small moment and had no impact on the game at all, but it mattered to me.
Chris’s cousin Tommy Bichan amongst the heaving mass of bodies in the Ba.
Part of me likes to believe that physical events like this can be reinterpreted as a concrete metaphor that has significance of future history… they are as real as I want them to be. Maybe this was meant to be…?
Chris relishing the crush of the Ba.
During the game, if the maul stays on the Main Street (as it did this year), instead of rolling down an alley the physical pressure is all the more intense – all 300 or so players can engage with the push. Every twenty minutes or so during the first hour, I had to retreat from the pack to relieve the rib-collapsing pressure on my sternum, threatening to crush my internal organs. I had to pull my chest forcibly apart and expand my heart and lungs before heading hack into the fray.
Steam rising from the Ba players as the sunlight hits the crowd.
Despite the occasional sprinkle of rain, a lack of wind meant no fresh oxygen was reaching the players, and a mist of stale breath and man-steam hung in the air like dry ice – you could physically claw it aside. This all added to the heightened atmosphere, and even in moments of discomfort like this, the artist in me starts plotting; the muscular reality of the maul contrasted against the eerie Turner light effects rung a chord as a way forward for a picture.
The ba has made its way towards the buildings and is seemingly lit by the hand of god.
I had been warned by George that I’d need to find my zen place. This was mine.
15 year old Connor Hancock, winner of the 2017 New Year’s Day Boy’s Ba, is hauled out of the alleyway over the heads of the players after playing in his second Ba of the day and his first ever men’s Ba, as is tradition. Several adult men were also rescued from the centre of the crush in this manner.Chris’s cousin Kit Bichan (centre) winner of the 2008 New Year’s Day Boy’s Ba, in the maul outside the alleyway. The meat in an Uppie sandwich.
The game progressed, heaving in fits and starts towards the sea (to the delight of the Doonie spectators) but after we were stuck down an alleyway for over an hour, panting on the recycled breath of our peers with already crushed lungs, the novelty started to wear thin. Being forcefully scraped down the harled walls of an alleyway like dehydrated sardines on dry toast can rapidly lose its appeal.
Putting the pressure on the mass of bodies in the alleyway.Multi-generational involvement: Chris’s dad Mike in the flat cap, and son Red (centre), peering into the maul looking for his father down the constipated alleyway.
Not for my son Red though, when I emerged he was aglow; eyes sparking, entranced by the action.
Players break from the scrum to chase the ba – or possibly just to mislead the other team.Handbags at dawn: a scuffle breaks out in the periphery of the maul.As the light starts to fade, shouts from the crowd indicated that the ba had been smuggled out of the alleyway and chaos ensued.
In a sick pastiche of my first game, we eventually left the alley by mutual consent. The Uppies had waited for dark and though we were no further than 250 metres from the sea at our closest, they managed a “smuggle” and a score of men successfully muscled it at a trot up the street to their goal – the Uppie wall. Players and spectators alike ran through the streets to follow the ba; I never saw the final moment of impact but from a distance the telltale flash of cameras told the fate of the day.
The crowds follow the players after shouts that the ba has slipped out of the alleyway and home to the Uppies’ wall.
The game had lasted for around four hours. Back in the Doonie pub the mood was muted. After the crush of the day, I felt little enthusiasm for crowding for beer.
Crowds waiting to hear the announcement of the winner of the ba in front of the Uppies’ wall.
It had been a good game but we had lost. The only salt on my clothes was dried bitter sweat, not sweet salty brine. To be honest, I’m under no illusions – I was clearly just an enthusiastic pawn in the Ba (and maybe most people are). After the throw up and beyond that first significant moment, I really only fleetingly saw the ba once, as it squirted out of the top of the maul like a fat rogue salmon showing its belly, before ducking back into the maelstrom. Beyond that, I was just following mob rumour, chasing ghosts. There are tactics and there is strategy, but I’m under no illusions that I have any master perception in the game, so I just shut up and pushed. Although I also took joy in using stranger status to spoil it for Uppies, I have been asked multiple times by sceptics if I enjoyed the game; yes, but some of the experience is better in retrospect.
Chris and Andy from the council on a site visit in Kirkwall to investigate possible locations for future murals and public art.
Hopefully, this now is a small first step in a long journey, and two years from now I will have painted the pictures that are in my head. The day after the Ba I again met with my contact at the council and we walked the streets of Kirkwall, looking at walls and spaces that might be appropriate locations for public art.
A discarded sports shirt lies in the street the day after the Ba.
As we passed, I stared disbelieving at the abandoned alley that the day before had held a hundred men, now just haunted by the ghost of yesterday.
Removing the protective wooden beams from the front of every shop and house in the centre of Kirkwall.Planks are removed from the centre of Kirwall for storage until the next year. Each custom-measured beam is carefully labelled, indicating which building it is designed to protect.
I’ve conceived a possible plan from this site visit which could tell a story of the Ba in a fair, balanced and dramatic way. It would be vital that despite my Doonie roots, both sides of the scrum get fair representation. I may have Orkney heritage but I am under no illusions that this is not my story; it’s intensely important to tell the story properly and represent the myth for the true faithful with integrity.
If I do get to paint the picture, my hope is that it would be the most ambitious and spectacular piece that I have ever made, in keeping with the monumental nature of the Kirkwall Ba. It’s a future history in my minds eye, but it would require the help and enthusiasm of the locals to make it happen.
Duct taped boots outside the alleyway.
Watch this space; for now, it’s baby steps. Hopefully as long as I keep my boots on my feet and that knot in my gut, we will get there in the end.
Footage of Chris (live painting, while dressed as Santa) is projected onto Norwich Castle as part of their Christmas celebrations. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
In October 2016 I was asked by Edinburgh-based Double Take Projections (who specialise in large-scale projections nationwide) if I would produce some paintings specifically to create some time lapse footage for the city of Norwich’s 2016 Christmas celebrations. As Double Take Projections are top professionals in the field with a track history of success, the Norwich Business Improvement District (BID) approached them to “paint” a number of local landmark buildings with projected animations and time-lapse footage.
Painting in front of time-lapse cameras has become an intrinsic part of my working practice over the past few years. Working in collaboration with editor Mettje Hunneman, I have now produced more than 20 short films which document my work process in this way. In addition to being a great publicity device and adding to my social media profile, I also find that the presence of time-lapse cameras provides me with added creative focus. The performance element of producing paintings on film keeps me engaged with the canvas and it forces me to be braver in my output. Furthermore, filming encourages me to keep working regardless of physical discomfort or tiredness, thereby increasing my productivity.
Chris being photographed and filmed while painting a Christmas mural in his studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
For three days at the end of October I painted in the studio while dressed as Santa (complete with a partially moulting fake white beard) while cameraman Adam Robertson kept a watchful eye on proceedings.
Working on the Norwich BID logo in the studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.The painted Norwich BID logo is projected onto Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
The images grew exponentially in size as the days rolled on; I began with an A0-size evolving painted Norwich BID logo, followed by a Norwich street scene measuring four feet by five feet, before finishing with an eight foot by twelve foot mini mural designed as a massive Norwich-themed Christmas card. I painted Santa himself in the the background and local celebrities Delia Smith and Stephen Fry pulling a cracker in the foreground. The conceptual idea was that the live action Santa ‘character’ (me) would begin as just a hand in the frame while painting the logo, but then would become increasingly dwarfed by the painting as the film unfolded.
Chris painting the Christmas mural in the studio in Edinburgh. Stephen Fry is at right, and Delia Smith is awaiting painting at left. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.Chris with the finished painting in the studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
All the years of event painting proved to be very useful in this venture as I now know that the camera likes me to act decisively, and ideally I need to make big decisions as I go. It was also nice to find a different format for that experience with this project.
Painting projections on Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
In late November I visited Norwich for a day while en route to London, in order to see the projection installed in the city. It was most bizarre to see myself on such a large scale, even if I was in my Santa disguise. I have friends in Norwich who will have to look at Santa’s bottom for the whole seven week run and know that it’s me, which can only increase their festive cheer.
Painting projections on Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
The main thing is that the footage and the animations that Double Take Productions created alongside the mural looked fantastic, and it came together to help create exhilarating and atmospheric new Christmas festivities in Norwich. For me personally, it’s really exciting that my time-lapse experiences can combine so seamlessly with my illustration skills. The footage that we generated was almost instantly created in conjunction with the computer animations and it really increased the quality of the product and the feeling of joy in the whole city.
Artists Chris Rutterford and Elph assessing their work while standing in front of the ADP shipping container, which houses a vast post-apocalyptic landscape viewable through tiny portholes.
The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) is a trilogy of artworks by Jimmy Cauty on a nationwide tour across the UK – each artwork is a 1:87 scale model housed in a shipping container, which are viewed through observation ports in the sides of the containers. It was also installed at Dismaland, the temporary art project organised by street artist Banksy and constructed in the seaside resort town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England in 2015.
View through one of the tiny portholes into the ADP shipping container.
The artwork has been touring the UK in 2016, specifically appearing in venues where there has been a history of rioting. Edinburgh’s Grassmarket was chosen as one of the tours destinations as it was the scene of the 1736 Porteous Riots, when Captain John Porteous, an unpopular chief of the City Guard, was overseeing the hanging of a local smuggler Andrew Wilson. When the watching crowds began to get unruly, Captain Porteous instructed the City Guard to shoot above the crowd’s heads and they subsequently wounded local residents who were watching from tenement windows. This exacerbated the already volatile situation, at which point Porteous instructed the the City Guard to shoot into the crowd, resulting in the deaths of six people.
The Porteous Mob, painted in 1855 by James Drummond, RSA FSA (1816–1877).
Captain Porteous was arrested for murder but after discovering that plans were afoot to arrange a pardon for him, a mob converged on the Tolbooth on the Royal Mile and he was dragged out of his prison cell and back down to the Grassmarket, where he was lynched, dying a deeply unpleasant death. Captain Porteous was buried in the adjacent Greyfriars Kirkyard in a grave marked with a simple ‘P’. This was replaced in 1973 by a stone bearing his full name and the moniker ‘All passion spent’.
Ahead of the closing weekend of the ADP Riot Tour’s installation in Edinburgh, I was asked by the Greater Grassmarket Business Improvement District (BID) and events organisers Too Much Fun Club to paint a mural of the scene alongside renowned Scottishstreet artist and illustrator, Elph. Working on connected octagonal boards, Elph and I engaged visitors to the Grassmarket as we worked on our separate but related public art works.
Elph invited audience participation with hands-on painting by the public, and I convinced visitors to pose for portraits to be incorporated into the scene. My crowd scene painting was inspired in part by James Drummond RSA who painted the riot in 1855.
The detritus of live painting.
Our pictures were situated back to back over the weekend and it was really great to have the two different styles complement and contrast one another and in an unintentional twist, even our clothes ended up matching our paintings.
Artists Chris Rutterford and Elph with their artwork and unintentionally matching clothing.
Elph also created some fantastic 360 degree footage of the two murals which can be viewed here: Elph 1 and Elph 2
Chris Rutterford working on his Porteous Riots mural in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
Continuing my live painting adventures in collaboration with the fearsome Clanranald Trust for Scotland, in July I painted at their pirate themed weekend.
The setting was the glorious Culross Palace, a beautiful 16th century merchant’s house in Fife which has featured prominently as a location in the television programme Outlander.
This is the second time that I’ve painted at a pirate event with the Clan, so I brought last year’s Boarding Party mural as an additional backdrop, which really helped set the scene and brought an added feel of the sea to the occasion.
The Clan put on a fantastic and professional show as usual. Culross Palace was filled with a motley crew of pirates and red coats, and the public revelled in the theatrical antics of the professional rogues.
Clanranald’s engaging and educational all-action living history re-enactments were scattered throughout the historic rooms, gardens and courtyards of the Palace.
Dressed as a pirate throughout the event, I spent the weekend attempting to capture the atmosphere of the event and tell the tale of what I saw.
Special thanks to Clanranald and Lorna McLean for the use of some of their photos.
The setting was the glorious Culross Palace, a beautiful 16th century merchant’s house in Fife which has featured prominently as a location in the television programme Outlander.
This is the second time that I’ve painted at a pirate event with the Clan, so I brought last year’s Boarding Party mural as an additional backdrop, which really helped set the scene and brought an added feel of the sea to the occasion.
The Clan put on a fantastic and professional show as usual. Culross Palace was filled with a motley crew of pirates and red coats, and the public revelled in the theatrical antics of the professional rogues.
Clanranald’s engaging and educational all-action living history re-enactments were scattered throughout the historic rooms, gardens and courtyards of the Palace.
Dressed as a pirate throughout the event, I spent the weekend attempting to capture the atmosphere of the event and tell the tale of what I saw.