I graffiti-ed!! Yes that slightly illegal yet highly satisfying activity.

It all started last week when Kate announced that her best friends birthday was coming up and that both being art students they compete against each other each year to create the artiest present they can.

She had a clear idea of what she wanted to do....a mural on a wall which would be filmed and edited and made into a video and then sent across a lot of sea to America! After much discussion over coffee including "Kate- you can't just paint a wall..", "Where will we find a wall that no-one will walk past..." and my personal favourite " Could you not just use a really big canvas and then attach it to a wall" we headed to the river after a Spanish man told us that was where the youngsters did that kind of thing. There was a lot of graffiti- of the teenager, dark colours, let your anger out- type and amongst this was a perfect bit of slanted wall/pavement utouched and screaming YES!

Kate, Imogen and I headed to the river most mornings and after a small hiccup where we bought wood paint which stuck to everything including hands we got stuck in with somewhat safer water-based paint. Kate's idea was to draw the girls name- Ariana in huge brightly coloured letters and then surround it in geometric based patterns...I just did what I was told. There was a lot of "Sarah, if you could just paint between this line and this line" but i was happy with instructions as I didn't really know what I was doing! Imogen and I did get slightly carried away at one point only to find that Kate had stayed behind to paint over our less-than-neat scribbles!

We had so much fun- we had music and it was really liberating painting the pavement with bright yellows and lime greens. At first we were worried what the public would think but to our amazement we got nothing but compliments. Its a popular spot for oldies who wander along/ powerwalk along the river and many of them stopped to say how lovely and bright it was and to congratulate us on our efforts. We even got a little grey haired fan club going who came by each day to look at our progress.

So after the postive views of the public we relaxed a little and had a great time. All the time we were filming the process for Kate to make into a video later by masking taping her camera to a nearby wall. So many times we nearly fell in the paint or stood on patches that weren't yet dry but overall we made an ace team.

So after convincing the public we thought we were free until a few days into the project a man greeted us followed by a smooth flip open of his badge and the word "Policia"! We didn't really know what to say...he asked if we were painting- as if he needed to ask as we were holding paintbrushes and covered in the stuff and then walked around the pavement- we carried on painting. He then asked where we studied and for some reason I piped up "Somos inglesas (We're English)" which seemed to work wonders. He smiled wished us good luck and left!! It seems that us being English made him think one or a mix of..

1.We have been sent to do an art project

2.We aren't going to understand him if he carries on talking to us

3.That's a good country and they look like well-dressed, respectable people

4. I'm off duty and the painting really is quite good

Haha....we were off the hook!! Suddenly painting on the pavement became slightly more legal. This would only happen in Orense.

It took 6 days to finish and in the end we were so proud of it. Kate edited the video and it all worked really well. Happy Birthday Ariana- I may never meet you but I am glad to have been part of your Birthday Project!