Under the Sea

The Land of Le Beef just got a little bit deeper - about two thousand leagues under the sea deeper. Once again the Land of Le Beef has worked with Woodland Pre-School in Hong Kong to create a mural at their newest location on Caine Road, this time with an underwater theme.

Yes it is better down where it's wetter, under the sea.

Another part of the school features a gritty, back alley urban theme to fit with playroom town.

City mice.

Woodland Classroom Animals

I realize that on the surface, the title of this post makes no sense whatsoever; as though I just decided to string three random words together in the hopes that no one would notice. Well I assure you that there is both a rhyme and a reason to it.

By now I'm sure you are all familiar with the collaborations between the Land of Le Beef and Woodland Pre-Schools (more info on that here and here). Each of the Woodland classrooms is named after a different animal, and in this latest Beef-Woodland collaboration I went in and illustrated  each classroom's character on a chalkboard that is mounted outside of the room. The result was unlike anything that the Land of Le Beef has produced before...

the Montessori Academy

You might remember that I recently did two small murals at a preschool in Hong Kong ( one of Woodland Pre-School's 10 locations in the city). Well those murals turned out so awesome, that Woodland insisted that I adorn the walls of their newest, most spectacular school yet - the Montessori Academy on Caine Road.

In keeping with the woodland theme, we decided to go with a forest motif for this mural. So once again I picked up my pencil, and went about designing what would soon become the modern version of Raphael's School of Athens. I could go into great detail about the planning, process, and decisions made, but I really don't feel like writing an essay right now. What I will say is that it is a huge honour to be a part of such a great school - the Montessori Academy is amazing.

(a big thank you to Rainbow Wong who helped with the painting - many long hours were spent making sure that each brush stroke was perfect)

planning, floorplan, construction...

sketches, ideas, details...

in progress, details...

paint, a paintbrush, and a beaver...

view of the main wall...

unfortunately the wall is so long that it is really hard to fit the entire mural in one photo, so here's a portion of it...

here's another portion of it...

this is a separate mural at the entrance of the school... 

the Woodland Montessori Academy from the outside...

woodland murals

if you like beavers and giraffes, and happy smiley vegetables, then this blog post is going to make you happy...

the Land of Le Beef was recently commissioned by Woodland (Hong Kong's top preschool, with 10 great locations throughout the city) to create not one, but two murals at their Waterfall school in Pokfulam.

this of course was a big beefy project (these would be my largest illustrations to date*). i knew that the murals would not only need be super awesome and fun to look at, but also needed to be educational, and inspire the children to do great things with their lives.

i sat down at my desk, pencil in hand, and started drafting what would become the greatest thing since the Sistine Chapel. below are the results.

fruits and vegetables - rough sketch and coloured draft

hippo, mouse, giraffe, beaver - rough sketch and coloured draft

fruits and vegetables - in progress, and finished piece

hippo, mouse, giraffe, beaver - finished piece

*shortly after completing these murals, Woodland invited me back to create an even BIGGER mural at their newest, most awesome location on Caine Road. blog post to come soon...........