Artists were busy about the mall on Saturday morning, making ready for the official opening of Colour New England in the Armidale CBD by Angus Nivison at 2pm. Chalk artist Rudy Kistler started his creation about 6am, although he said it was a little bit too dark to achieve much at that hour, but on the other hand he still had a little bit to figure out.
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"I sort of have to leave a little bit to figure out on the day, otherwise I get bored," he said.
"If I do a complete sketch that has everything nutted out, and I get there and just have to copy that, then it doesn't really have much of an interest to me.
"And also because I'm dealing with the natural environment, for example this Plaza has a slight dip in it and that can throw the sketch off. So, again it's not really in my best interests to do a refined, highly detailed sketch."
Rudy said the first thing he did this morning before he started creating the 3D leaves in a puddle, was to walk around and gather some leaves from the trees to see what they looked like.
"I hold them in my hand and see how they would look floating, and I let that inspire me," he said.
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"I really like drawing from the environment that I am working in. The thing that makes my pieces a little bit better than average is that they're interactive, and the idea with this piece is that people will be able to jump from leaf to leaf like stepping stones.
"The thing about these interactive pieces is that people enjoy a bit of danger. There is no real danger with this, but the implied danger is that if you slip and fall you fall into the water."
Bruce McRae was also setting up, and putting the finishing touches to tonight's vivid show.
"There's lights from Richardson's through to the Imperial Hotel, including the Westpac and AMP buildings," he said.
"We've looked at buildings that are more historically relevant ... and lots of buildings that we can actually get at because we've got a lot of trees to work around around as well."
He said the light show would be computer controlled, with some needing to be connected by cable because of wi-fi overload in some spots.
So, what was the hardest part of the whole thing?
"Old age," Bruce said, and laughed as he adjusted the ladder he was carrying on his shoulder.
