Hundreds of schoolchildren and artist create colourful mural in Derbyshire village to celebrate great outdoors

Hundreds of children have pitched in to help create a colourful mural which is now on display in a Derbyshire village.
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Artist Lily Hammond enlisted the help of around 200 children for the mural which was officially unveiled as part of Platinum Jubilee celebrations in playing fields near Ashover Cricket Pavillion on June 5.

The colourful artwork, titled The Great Outdoors, was commissioned by Ashover Parish Council and acts to celebrate the village through the four seasons – spring, summer, autumn and winter.

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Pupils from Ashover Primary School were among those involved, with each participant invited to complete colouring sheets which were then edited together to form the completed mural image.

Artist Lily Hammond pictured with the new mural she created with help of local schoolchildren at Ashover playing fieldsArtist Lily Hammond pictured with the new mural she created with help of local schoolchildren at Ashover playing fields
Artist Lily Hammond pictured with the new mural she created with help of local schoolchildren at Ashover playing fields

Lily, who is originally from Ashover but now lives in Swanwick, said: “The parish council, along with Ashover Primary School, designed a new park to be built just before Covid.

"They had it built and the mural was originally going to be part of the opening – but when the pandemic happened, that pushed it back for quite some time.

"A lot of the children were from Ashover that took part but I also opened it up to just local children, so there’s some from Chesterfield too.

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The mural was unveiled in Ashover on June 5The mural was unveiled in Ashover on June 5
The mural was unveiled in Ashover on June 5
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"We did something similar when I was in primary school for the millennium tapestry displayed in the church, and I still feel a lot of pride being part of that, so I wanted to give other children the same opportunity.

"The great outdoors was picked with the idea that it was a real community project.”

The colourful sheep, trees and pumpkins are just some of the features of the mural where children provided their input – painting drawings which Lily said she created to form the colouring sheets.

"They would paint them and scan them into the computer to send back to me,” Lily added. “We Do More Than Print, in Clay Cross, then got involved in the printing aspect and they have been brilliant.

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"The mural has been printed on a metal dibond sheet and is now fixed to the railings, but we’ll be moving it inside the park.

“It was really nice to get lots of positive feedback from people who were seeing it for the first time. I’m really proud of it.”

For more of Lily's work search @lilyhammondart on social media.

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