The Oor Wullie’s BIG Bucket Trail is the first ever nationwide public art trail, here on the streets of Scotland’s cities for 11 weeks from 17th June 2019, culminating in a series of Farewell Events and nationwide auctions in each of the five host cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. Scotland’s first ever national public art trail aims to unite the country as it raises awareness and vital funds for Scotland’s children’s hospital charities including
Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity,
Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity and
The ARCHIE Foundation.
I have never really worked on a medium like this used to just illustrating pen to paper so it's been fun to get out of my comfort zone and create something new (and it's for a great cause so even better!).
Here you can see the initial design I submitted for the trail. The design is called 'Oor Patter'. I decided to make it fun and colourful as it is in aid of a children's charity but also add in some tartan and some of Scotland's best loved slang and sayings. Its a fun take on being pure dead Scottish for all ages.
It took me around a week to complete painting the sculpture and I must say I found the whole process very therapeutic. Loved painting so large scale and getting to do free hand lettering too. You can see some pics below of process shots during that week.
My sculpture was based in Stranraer for the trail and had a great spot in the high street outside the castle! It was commissioned by the
HSC Group in Stranraer who do great work fundraising money for sick kids all over Scotland. Oor Patter was based down in Stranraer for 11 weeks over the summer of 2019.
I of course made a trip down to see him in his pride and glory, it was great to hear he'd been getting lots of visitors and encouraging folk from Stranraer and further a field to come visit.
After the trail was over the piece was auctioned for charity, you can watch the video of 'Oor Patter' being sold
here.
He went for £6000 on the night and the
Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity in total made £419,500 by auctioning off all 50 Oor Wullie's from the Glasgow area. It was such a joy to take part in this project and so great to see so much being raised for such and important and great cause over Scotland.
If you'd like to donate to Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity you can do so
here.
Also if you'd like to hear more about the Oor Wullie's BIG Bucket Trail you can
here!