Three days from now, on August 7th, the second annual Vancouver Mural Festival will start. Inaugural Year 2016 was a great success with its striking new murals, live entertainment and visitor hubbub.

This year, there will be events and street art in both Mount Pleasant and Strathcona. The volunteer team are predicting that more than 100,000 people will come to check out the 50 new murals.

There will be tours, talks, parties and live mural-making throughout the week. On August 9th and 10th, you can join in on the painting. Artist Jenny Ritter has laid down a huge paint-by-numbers mural. All are welcome to paint between Ritter’s lines on the Heather’s Doggy Daycare fence at 137 East 4th Avenue.

If you want to get a jump on the crowds, you can follow the Festival maps to see which 2017 murals are in progress and which are already done. You might also discover some that you missed in 2016.

Walls are being primed and painted. Murals are on the way..

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Emily Gray + Oksana

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Toilet Snake

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Milan Basic

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iheart

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GHIA Collective. Community Tree

GHIA here stands for ‘Growing Hope Into Action.’ This group of Emily Carr University students says: ‘Just as a tree creates community and shelter for all sorts of birds and insects as well as other animals, so we hope that co-creating this tree mural with local youth from the Mt. Pleasant area will promote a sense of community and deeper engagement with the environment.’

Mural2017Events

Written by Elizabeth Newton