The Liverpool Cityscape, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
96 x 192in / 244 x 488cm

PAINTING STATISTICS

Full time work on project commenced 5th April 2005
Painting completed 30 March 2008
Duration: 3 years for the team. (Would have been 18 years for 1 person)
Buildings depicted: several hundred thousand

Workforce for 3 years Ben Johnson + 3 draftsmen, 1 colour separator for stencils , 1 colour mixer/studio assistant. Over a 3-year period 43 people assisted on painting in the studio, many of them volunteers.

Overall view covers 5 square miles.
Viewpoint is 220 metres above sea level and 500 metres out into The Mersey looking towards the Three Graces. On the extreme right is the Anglican Cathedral and bottom left is St. Nicholas Church.

Over 3000 reference photographs taken
An average of 25 stencils used per building or group of buildings
Port of Liverpool used 380 stencils (the most complex building)
Anglican Cathedral and Liver Building each used 300 separate stencils
A total of 22,950 stencils used (excluding those for landscape, water and foliage)
700 individual colours mixed. Blended, these create thousands more.

The painting was completed in public during a 6-week residency at the Walker Art Gallery (28 January to 7 March 2008).

Visitors to Walker: over 250,000