A few years ago I started to think of ways to make my classroom more aesthetically pleasing. A large space, with dark blue walls but plenty of natural light, I felt it could be made more welcoming and interesting. Having recently seen a film on Shackleton’s Antartic escapades, I recalled his use of Browning’s wonderful line “For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave”, and wondered if I could emblazon it upon a wall.

Feeling I lacked the skill to do it justice, I asked some art students to do it for me, advising them to stencil rather than paint freehand. The result was impactful, and got me started thinking about cutting and spraying myself.

The result, generated over a period of 3 years, is a total of 13 pieces of art work, each created with stencil and spray paint. Generally I create the stencils digitally, and then blow them up with Image Splitter, before printing, sticking, cutting, mounting and finally painting. Over time I have learned a few tricks and become more ambitious, with the result that the newer pieces generally look better than the older ones. The gallery of finished works below is presented in chronological order.