Eddy Rocks and the Portage College Voyageurs team logo now greet the home team and visitors walking down the dressing room hallway at Lac La Biche’s Bold Centre. The four-foot-tall logo was painted onto the hallway wall this week by Plamondon-area artist Melanie Braund. The Portage College Voyageurs’ logo features a large V-shape split by the college’s rugged and bearded mascot Eddy Rocks steering a canoe through churning waters.
The project took four days to complete, and involved sanding down the area, projecting the logo onto the wall, tracing the outline, taping and re-taping areas as two coats of paint were applied.
Bold Centre wall
hallway wall The local artist has completed several community projects including a large
metalwork art installation that was part of the Bold Centres main entrance area
“There’s a lot that goes into this, and I think it turned out really well,” said Braund, an artist of many talents including painting, photography, clay sculpting and metal work.
So how does Eddy keep that fresh and bright skin-tone under his brilliant red shirt without too much glare from the harsh hallway lights? Glad you asked.
While Braund uses her expert skills as an artist, and a grey undertone beneath the two coats of red paint to make it really stand out, the paint itself helps to make the logo colours pop.
“It’s a floor paint with an enamel surface. I’m really pleased with how it came out. I really love the whole design,” says Braund, who painted the minor hockey team Lac La Biche Clippers logo onto the opposite wall of the hallway last year.
Her company, Melanie Braund Fine Art has created other artistic features in and around the community, including a 30-foot tall, metallic feather and smaller components she cut and welded for an installation that commemorated commemorate the opening of the Bold Center more than a decade ago.
Home Opener
The next Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference visiting team to walk past the new logo will be the Augustana Vikings when they play the Voyageurs in the regular season home opener on Friday, October 17.