Illustrator sees Village Green through a child’s eyes

Illustrator Peter Mitchell has taken on the perspective of a young child for his new painting – the fourth and final installment to go up on the hoarding at Creemore Village Green.
“I was thinking about the wonder a little kid might find in a park,” said Mitchell. “To notice who you are sharing it with.”
A large-scale girl is depicted, disturbs a butterfly while searching for her dog’s tennis ball as she explores the garden’s flora and fauna, and discovers the bugs of the natural world. Mitchell said he has had fun incorporating little creatures – like a stick bug and a hummingbird moth – that can be found in a kind of visual scavenger hunt. He said he loves the idea of children having access to nature within an urban area.
In Mitchell’s signature style he starts with a line drawing, which in this case had to be scaled up to a much larger format than he would normally work on, to fill one of the hoarding panels. The image is filled in with oil paint in flat colour, giving it a graphic feel. The line drawing overlay remains visible on the final product.
Like other artists involved in the project, the scale and protection against the elements pose specific challenges.
“I was thrilled to be included,” said Mitchell. It took me a while to wrap my head around how I’d approach it.”
A former freelance illustrator, Mitchell now turns his creative attention to personal artistic projects, and has a growing farming operation, at Mitchell Family Farms.
The painting will be going up in the near future. All works of art on the hoarding will be auctioned off at a later date, as a fundraiser for the project.