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Graffiti artist revamps primary school playground

BBC A cartoon owl with blue feathers on a white wall BBC
Artist Darrell Wynne, known as Soapspray, completed the mural in a day

A graffiti artist who created a Derby County mural ahead of the team's promotion to the Championship has completed another at a primary school in Derbyshire.

Darrell Wynne, known as Soapspray, painted the mural on a blank wall at the back of Morley Primary School near Ilkeston.

The artwork depicts the school logo of an owl, along with the school's motto "the Morley feeling".

Soapspray said he enjoyed the opportunity because he would eventually like to teach children how to do graffiti.

Darrell Wynne standing in front of his school art
Mr Wynne said it was "rewarding" to create something for the public

Mr Wynne balances his artistic side with his day job as a tree surgeon.

His Derby County mural depicting the club's record goal scorer Steve Bloomer in an underpass beneath Pride Parkway was completed within one day.

Mr Wynne was contacted by school development officer Samantha Jackson after she saw some of his work on Instagram.

"At this time of the year the children would normally be studying Banksy, another graffiti artist, not local at all to Derby," she said.

"We have our own graffiti artist who is local to us so I thought, what better opportunity than to ask him to come down and create us our own unique piece of artwork?"

Mural on an underpass of Derby County legend Steve Bloomer
The Steve Bloomer mural was organised by a Derby County supporter group

Mr Wynne completed the mural during a school day, so pupils could keep coming out to the playground to see how he was getting on.

He said: "I'm so privileged to have the experience of seeing the excitement. They're really interested in graffiti, which is a new thing for a school to have that in their curriculum.

"When I was in school it was non-existent, frowned upon, and now it's classed as an art form and all the kids are getting involved."

Three pupils in blue uniforms stand in front of Soapspray working on his mural
Gabby, Lucas and Sammy were all impressed with the artwork

Year 6 pupil Lucas said: "I really like it and I think that it's really good that he's here in real life because we had an assembly and we got to see lots of pictures that he's done before."

"I think it's really cool because we're going to stand out from all the other schools around the country," said Sammy, who is in the same year.

Her sister Gabby said: "We don't normally do this in school and I don't think most schools would have a good graffiti artist come and paint on one of their white walls."

A white wall with a blue cartoon owl and the words love, passion, togetherness and 'The morley feeling'
The artwork features the school's motto

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