I was out the front mowing the nature strip,
and I could see a bit of attention on the other side of the bridge,
of people looking and taking photos and I thought
"wow, there's something going on".
So I went and had a squiz and then once I saw what I saw,
I thought "yeah this is gutsy".
Honestly it looked like someone done damage to the bridge with the way it's got
the hole in it. I had no idea who done it.
I thought "well someone around here has got talent."
I probably should have got permission, but I thought I'll just go
and have an experiment. It's only chalk. That's gonna last a couple of days.
If it rains it'll come straight off.
I did it on a Friday, thought if it's not washed off by the Sunday
I can go down with some water and hose it off.
And then it wasn't until I actually touched it and
realised what it was done with, and then I thought
"well, it's gonna rain and it'll be gone".
So, yeah, it needed saving. It can't go.
So I'd been hired by Warrnambool City Council to do
a piece done in pastels and I needed to have a bit of practise.
So I snuck down to the bridge that's literally at the end of my driveway outside my house,
just to see how the pastels would adhere to the concrete and how they'd last.
It took about three hours and people were hooting on the way past,
so people were calling up and talking to me, like
"wow, I thought someone had knocked a hole in the bridge.
What are you doing here?" Instantly it was a lot of fun for the community.
Because originally I was going to wash it off that night,
but I loved it so much I thought "I'm just going to leave it there,
"It's the weekend, let people drive past and see it,
and then I'll wash it off on the Sunday."
Me wife warned me, "don't interfere
don't go near it." [REPORTER] Did you listen to your wife?
(LAUGHS) Nah! No, I put the hi-vis on and pretended, you know, I was someone important,
and I knew exactly what to put on it to make it stay there and done the old
(MIMICS SPRAY CAN) "psssssssssss" three times.
Oh, I had to let let it dry in between coats
(LAUGHS) yeah, and by the time the nature strip was mowed
it was permanent. Yeah.
So then Sunday came around and I went down there with my bucket of water and my cloth,
and as I walked up to it I noticed it was shiny and I thought "oh my god".
It looks like it's had some chemical reaction. It was a really dewy morning that morning.
I thought maybe the pastels absorbed some of the moisture from the air.
So I go up and I rub it with my finger and it's not coming off
and I dip my cloth in, I'm starting to wipe, and it's just not moving.
(LAUGHS EXCITEDLY) Yeah! He'd been tryin' to wash it. (LAUGHS) No, he'd been ...
I start to panic, I'm like "oh my god what's going on?"
Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, decided "alright, I'll come back and I'll get metho."
So I came back, got a bottle of metho, ran down, same thing, it wouldn't come off.
It's anti-graffiti clear. Yeah, yeah.
It's game over there, you won't wash it off.
I'm starting to panic, thinking "oh my god, I haven't got permission,
the Council don't even know I've done it."
So then I came back and I've found acetone, which is like nail polish remover
and that stuff gets everything off, and it didn't even come off with nail polish remover.
So then I was just stumped. I'm like "well, what do I do? I have to leave it there and work it out
and I decided I would contact Council and let them know what had happened.
I was freaking out a lot, because you can get in a lot of trouble - I mean, it's essentially graffiti.
Although it's art, it's graffiti.
It's not graffiti! That's - yeah - it's art!
[TRAIN ROLLS OVER BRIDGE ABOVE]
My daughter goes to school locally, so I took her to school and one of the mums told me
a local person who lives near me had come across and sprayed it with a clear coat.
I asked a couple of people around and they all pointed to across the other side of the train bridge -
Mr Phil Hoy.
Jimmi's showed up and introduced himself, and said he was the bloke who -
and I said "yeah, gutsy as Jimmi!
"I love it that much that I've preserved it. It's there for life mate."
And I was - I lost it. I thought it was hilarious.
I chatted to him for about half an hour. And then it turned out that at one point in his career
he was the contractor as the graffiti removalist for Warrnambool City Council
and here he was protecting my graffiti with a clear coat.
And it was an automotive clear coat, so nothing gets that stuff off!
It's permanent! It's part of Warrnambool now.
[REPORTER] So the wombat's legal? It's legal.
Yeah! Wombat's here to stay!
We just need - you need to run a comp to name the wombat.