Nomadic artist Jake Allen spent a few months in the Blue Mountains during lockdown and on his regular jogs around Wentworth Falls Lake was drawn to an ugly grey cement block which he was keen to paint.
After gaining permission from Blue Mountains council's cultural development co-ordinator Katrina Noorbergen and with his own tins of house paint, the part-time track builder was able to add a much needed spot of colour to the remains of where a toilet once stood.
He was drawn to paint the glossy black-cockatoo and hopes it makes more locals curious about the bird. Mr Allen, 27, wanted to pay homage to this beautiful, casurina-seed loving bird with his new mural by the water and "brighten the day" of passing locals.
"It has taken a while to finish, but I have been so grateful to have been able to paint here and so happy with the feedback and conversations that I have gotten to have with everyone passing by.
"Oh my God, the time at the wall was two-and-a-weeks but I was waiting around for the rain to pass for months. I couldn't paint in the rain. Before that I sketched the design in about a day and created a map for myself to see how I was going and then I painted a lot of cockatoos to get better at it. I really want to know [a subject] to be a bit more comfortable with it."
Mr Allen trained at RMIT, Victoria as a visual artist but said as a "beginning artist" he is eager to create a body of work, travelling around in his van pitching for jobs.
"Living here for four, five months after the snow season in 2021. I was in the Mountains through COVID and itching to get to [art] work.
"I haven't done too many. I'm pretty stoked to be able to paint there and leave this big painting... I am pretty chuffed just to have a piece of my work in an iconic spot as the Mountains."
Mr Allen is currently in Cairns painting "quite random things ... a rainforest and a more commercial work - two pizza slices as wings for selfies outside a pizza shop".
"I'd like to have a studio, but not everyone wants a year's worth of murals in the same town, so I travel."
Another artist is expected to paint on the other side of the block at the lake.
Contact Jake Allen on Instagram @all.j.art.
