When I was asked by a corporate client to create a Glasgow themed piano design for them I was over the moon! I love working in new formats and decorating a piano bringing it back to life is something I’d never done before! 

The piano in question was provided by Tom at The Piano Project who do fantastic work restoring and providing piano’s for lots of different community events as well as restoring and selling pianos from their south side workshop.

Here you can see the piano before we started any of the paint work!

And here you can see the sketched out plan I made before starting any painting on the piano:

I worked on the piano at The Piano Project’s studio in Shawlands and it was an absolute pleasure to spend a week or so working away in there. Tom fixed up, primed and painted the base coat on the piano and helped me every step of the way by taking different sections of the piano apart for me to work on as well as helping me choose where to place each of the illustrations on the final design.

The client wanted an illustration of their building included in the piece but apart from that asked me to go for it and create whatever I thought would work best.

I decided to include some other landmarks from around the River Clyde area as that is where they are based. I included the Finnieston Cran, The Armadillo, The Riverside Museum and The Tall Ship.

Of course I also had to get some classic Glasgow sayings in there too as well as a tartan background to bring it all together. I added the ‘Gaun Yersel’ text to the front of the piano as lots of The Piano Project’s up-cycled pianos have that incorporated into their designs to encourage everyone to have a go and play the piano no matter what their ability!

Here are some photos of the finished piano sitting proudly in the clients reception area, they plan to wheel it all over their campus for different events including in their cafe and event space as well as even outside in the summer months to give passers by a chance to have a go!

You can watch the whole piano painting process with this video created by Tom at The Piano Project and if you’re ever looking to buy, donate or upcycle a piano do give Glasgow Piano City a shout!