The
Mural Maker

01

Among the birds

Brenton was about four years of age when he began spending time in the aviaries on his grandmother’s property. Around him were cows, sheep, green pastures, nutrient-rich red soils and the vast coastal landscapes of the South West, but it was the budgerigars (budgies) that held his attention.

He would sit quietly inside the enclosure while the birds carried on around him, feeding, drinking and tending to their young. The birds were accustomed to having people around and he reveled in the fact that he could watch them at close range without disturbing their routines.

“I loved just sitting in there,” he recalls. “They were able to go about their daily activities without me being a nuisance to them.”

Outside the aviaries, his grandmother scattered seed on the lawn, drawing in parrots whose colour and movement gave him another window into the natural world. Visits to family in Busselton also meant bush walks and time near the water. Nature became less a destination than the place where he felt most at ease.

Birds remained a constant as he grew. He copied illustrations from wildlife guides and later bred Gouldian finches in an aviary behind his own home. What began as childhood fascination would eventually supply both the subject matter and purpose of his career.

02

Finding his own line

The path to mural painting was anything but direct. Brenton studied graphic design at TAFE, where he learnt about colour, shape, composition and became proficient in Adobe Photoshop. Yet the parts he enjoyed most were those that took him away from the computer and allowed him to draw by hand.

He had imagined a future designing skateboard graphics or T-shirts or “something cool”. The prospect of producing business cards and flyers for agencies did not appeal to his creative nature, so he left the course and looked elsewhere for a form of art that felt more personal.

A visit to get his first tattoo opened another possibility. After showing the tattooist a portfolio of his drawings, Brenton was offered an apprenticeship. He spent eight months in the studio, much of it cleaning and speaking with customers, before learning drawing techniques suited to skin. Tattoo design taught him to sharpen contrast and place colour so an image would hold its presence.

At home, he kept returning to the delicate watercolours and pencil drawings in his bird guides. Gradually, the influences came together: the structure of graphic design, the forceful outlines of tattoo art and the careful observation of natural-history illustration.

“It was a combination of graphic design, the illustrations in the bird guides and the tattooing,” he says. “Everything that I did was helpful in creating the way that I paint.”

“Everything that I did was helpful in creating the way that I paint.”

The career paths themselves did not last, but each left a visible trace in the work that followed.

03

The first wall

After leaving tattooing, Brenton worked in retail while drawing and painting whenever he could. He began placing his work online. People responded and commented, then started buying his paintings. As sales grew, he reduced his retail work hours, moved into a Northbridge studio and began exhibiting.

He recalls that Instagram arrived at precisely the right moment. A completed painting could be photographed, posted and sold directly. His account became, in effect, his shopfront. Eventually he faced a choice between retail and art, and decided to take the risk.

Murals were not part of the plan. Brenton regarded the handful appearing around Perth as a passing fad and remained focused on studio work. Then, in 2015, a friend painting in Mount Lawley invited him to paint one of the neighbouring walls which she was contracted to produce a mural on as the project was a little too big to handle on her own.

The scale did not frighten him. He had already used grids to transfer drawings onto sizeable canvases, and enlarging the same grid onto a wall felt like a natural extension. The unfamiliar part was working in public.

In a studio, viewers encounter the finished picture. On the street, they see every uncertain stage. People could stand behind him, discuss the half-completed work and judge it before the image had come together.

The experience nevertheless altered the course of his career. “I never thought murals were going to be a career for me,” he says. That first wall proved otherwise.

04

What belongs here

Today, place determines what Brenton paints. Before designing a mural, he investigates the native species recorded within roughly ten to fifteen kilometres of the wall. The boundary is self-imposed, but it gives every work a relationship with its surroundings.

He once spent more time walking through nearby reserves and taking his own reference photographs. With two young children and less time for fieldwork, he now mainly uses iNaturalist, an online database where dated observations and photographs help him confirm that a species has recently been seen in the area.

For school projects, this research can become part of the lesson where teachers involve students in the subject matter selection process of a new mural. Brenton shows students how to explore the database, then helps them identify animals and plants from nearby bushland. If a mural can accommodate five examples of flora and five of fauna, students may vote on which ones should appear on the finished artwork.

“If they’re putting a name behind something they’ve seen in their garden or at the park down the road, that’s a win for me,” he says.

“If they’re putting a name behind something they’ve seen in their garden or at the park down the road, that’s a win for me.”

The rule also means saying no in numerous circumstances. Rainbow lorikeets and laughing kookaburras may be familiar Perth sights, but both were introduced from eastern Australia. Brenton declines to paint them as representatives of local wildlife, sometimes suggesting a native alternative such as the more colourful sacred kingfisher, a relative of the kookaburra.

Birds remain popular with clients, but he looks for opportunities to include the creatures people often overlook: lizards, insects, frogs and tiny flowers hidden in the bush. His murals become outsized field guides, revealing what has been living nearby all along.

05

Building in layers

A mural begins with practical work. Brenton secures the site, lays drop sheets, checks the ground beneath his ladder to ensure it is level, brushes away cobwebs and removes anything flaking from the surface. A coat of primer seals the wall and gives the paint something to hold onto.

His concept sits on his phone. Flora is forgiving enough to sketch freehand in chalk, but animals demand greater precision. For them, he overlays a grid on the reference photograph, measures the wall and scales each square up. The mathematics turns a small image into a bird or animal several metres high.

Then the picture advances in stages. On the first day he establishes the outlines and perhaps the background colour. The next layers block in the subjects and build their form. Later come perspective, light and shadow. Brenton repeatedly walks away from the wall to see whether the composition still makes sense from a distance.

Black creates the deepest shadows. White comes last: highlights and an outline that separates each form from the background.

“Once that’s done, I know the mural’s finished,” he says.

The final image can look effortless, but reaching that white line usually takes about five to 6 days of methodical work.

06

Heat, dust and second thoughts

Painting walls is physically demanding work. Brenton may hold a long roller pole above his head for four or five hours. At six foot three, he can also spend much of a residential job crouched or perched on a milk crate to reach the lower part of a fence.

Perth’s cloudless summer skies bring another strain. Brenton has suffered heatstroke on several occasions as painted surfaces reflect heat and glare towards him. Absorbed in his work, he can easily forget to eat, drink or reapply sunscreen. He now trains regularly at the gym and takes greater care of his body, knowing that an injured back or shoulder could mean time away from the wall.

Few projects tested him like a large mural on water tanks at a mine site near Tom Price. His days began around four in the morning. Wind drove red dust into wet paint, forcing him to retouch the bright colours. Sun and shadow produced different drying times across the same galvanised-steel surfaces. Safety meetings interrupted the rhythm of painting. He learnt to work on several areas at once and adjust continuously.

Other lessons have involved more than weather. At Lake Claremont, a tawny frogmouth requested for a mural was later found to carry negative cultural associations for members of the Noongar community, who were frequently invited to the area for events and ceremonies. Brenton removed it and redesigned that portion of the work around another bird and type of tree.

The experience reinforced the need for broader consultation before a design is approved. “More questions have to be asked,” he says. “You learn something from every job.”

“More questions have to be asked. You learn something from every job.”

Even without such complications, he refuses to leave a wall merely acceptable. If a drop shadow looks too dark when he steps back, he will spend hours repainting it. “I want to make sure it’s spot on.”