AN illustrator and avid Brian Wildsmith fan has put together an art project that brought people from across town together.
Paul Morton was a fan of the children’s book illustrator long before he discovered that they both lived on the same street in Hoyland Common and attended Barnsley Art School - though a generation apart.
As such, when the Cooper Gallery began the Brian Wildsmith exhibit, he chose to create a large mosaic that allows fans to put their own mark on his work.
He told the Chronicle: “I devised this giant tiger mosaic idea because of my admiration and approached the Cooper Gallery with it.
“It’s taken from one of Brian’s famous animal stories books and with permission of the Wildsmith family.
“I printed very faint grey guides on the A5s and people also had a mini colour chip version of each tile so they knew what colours to follow.
“It launched in April at the grand opening of the exhibition and we completed two-thirds of it in that session.
“We’ve had a subsequent craft session where all but 15 tiles were finished, then I coloured some at home and staff at the gallery did a few
“On Friday last week I added the very final tile to complete the giant image.
“I would guess that more than 80 individuals worked on this altogether as quite a few people stayed to colour in more than one tile.”
