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Lahore is the city of fountains. Well, that’s what history says. Except traffic, walls purged with advertisements of Bengali Babas and ‘Peshab karna manna hai,’ there are not many pleasant sight views to behold down the pedestrian paths. A gradual but substantial process of making the Lahore city multi-hued has come about.
One rarely drives through Lahore without seeing different expressions of art and abstract. Occupying many walls throughout the already vibrant city of Lahore, the Street Art Competition has now spread its colors to Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala.

Initiated by Message Welfare Trust, the Street Art Competition gives the youth a chance to put in their part in beautifying their respective city. They also get an opportunity to define their thoughts and expressions through colors and not to forget the incentive of a fun filled time with friends.
Initiated early this year in March, the series of SAC has been scattering colors all over Lahore, travelling all the way to Multan, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi. Recently, more than 200 students from various education institutes participated in SAC. Armed with their expertise and raw talent of drawing and painting. 50 walls of Rawalpindi were tinted with meticulous designs painted by the youth of Rawalpindi. With Pakistan and its beauty as the theme of the activity, the students of Rawalpindi presented their love Pakistan’s beauty and heritage through their creativity and paints. They walked through undiscovered terrains of their talents. Historical monuments and natural landmarks of Pakistan were painted. Those with the flair elaborate amusing graffiti on the large brick canvas.
With a vision of a better future, Master Paints both supports and supplies this anti wall chalking campaign as it gives people a break from the advertisement infested walls. Making the concept of talking walls as their foundation, SAC and Master Paints make their statement of a cleaner environment by inviting people to create from themselves a favourable surrounding. The thought of talking walls is talking about the beauty, culture, art and traditions of our country. It also encourages the art activities among the youth.
Every talking wall depicts a story-a story that tells you something about the artist, a bit about the theme of the competition, a little about the colors and most importantly, it reminds us, the citizens of Pakistan, how our cup has been filled up to the brim with blessings in the shape of our country, and how we choose to ignore it instead of cherishing it.
As Paulo Coehlo says, every blessing neglected becomes a curse, SAC says every colour and the slightest glimpse of beauty ignored makes it blight. Master Paints supports as well as sponsors SAC and offers the most vivid of hues and the most brilliant of shades of colour, pushing people to bring about beauty with colour to their city.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/11/27/city/islamabad/paint-the-world-with-love/

The painting, which consumed 3,500 litres of paint, was painted at the National Hockey Stadium on Friday.

The participants had lined up in the grounds next to the hockey stadium at 8am. They were divided into 260 teams.

According to the event management team, the Facebook page for the event had more than 19,000 likes within 6 hours of its launch.

By 4pm the painting was completed. Dr Neelam Naz, head of the architecture department at the University of Engineering and Technology then measured it for the record.

Sharood Zafar, who volunteered for the management team, said that each of the teams had been assigned a portion of the canvas to paint on.

The teams had also been provided with the images to paint, a night before the event, she said.

Zafar, a human resource professional, said that the layout for the painting, a mosaic patterned after the Pakistan flag, had been finalised earlier by the coordination team of the Message Welfare Trust, the organisers of the event.

The concept originated with Mudassir Zia, a mechanical engineer from the University of Engineering and Technology. Zia had earlier participated in a street art competition where more than 500 walls of the city were painted.  Speaking with The Express Tribune, Zia said he was overwhelmed by the eagerness of the people participating in the event. “We have done our bit, let’s hope the Guinness authorities acknowledge this effort,” he said.

“We already know what the youth of Pakistan are capable of – this is just another example of what they can do,” said Farrukh Sufi, technical director of Master Paints, the main sponsor of the event.

Sufi said that the event came in after three years of work with the Message Welfare Trust on beautifying the walls in Lahore.

He said the company hoped to take the painting to all the major cities of the country. The sponsors who provided participants with a paint kit each and refreshments and arranged for video coverage of the event, hope initiatives on an even larger scale will follow.

Mehwish Mehr, another participant took part in the event along with her two sisters. Mehr painted a rocket “symbolising Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s contribution” to the country’s defence productions. She said she was confident the event would be a success. “I am sure we will set a new record today.”

Five students from the Department Of Fine Arts at the Punjab University painted a portrait of former prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan.  Another participant painted a portrait of the late Arfa Karim Randhawa.

The participants attempted to set a new record of completing the painting in 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Guinness certification rules require at least two independent witnesses throughout the duration of the event.

One of them was Aqsa Malik, a lecturer of the Fine Arts Department at Punjab University.

Towards the end of the event, Senator Pervez Rashid visited the National Hockey stadium. “This is the true picture of Pakistan,” he said.

The painting was photographed from the air once it was finished. The results have been sent to the Guinness World Records. The organisers expect a response within a month.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2012.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/354277/world-record-attempt-1300-youth-paint-41000-sq-foot-canvas/

Pakistani students broke the Guinness world record on Friday by painting the world’s largest canvas to mark the Pakistan Day. The painting of the Pakistani flag, measuring almost 42,000 square feet was made by 1300 male and female students at the National Hockey Stadium.
Students from different educational institutions took part in painting the huge flag.
The event was organised by the Message Welfare Trust, a youth-based organisation that has been holding street art competitions for the last three years to discourage wall chalking, in collaboration with the Punjab Sports Board. According to Message Welfare Trust President Mudassir Zia, his organisation had started the Street Art Competition (SAC) to replace wall chalking with paintings structured around the culture and traditions of Pakistan.
In the third season of SAC, around 2,350 participants painted 270 walls in different areas of Lahore in an attempt to beautify the city with positive Pakistani themes.
The Message Welfare Trust team later took on the challenge of painting the world’s largest canvas painting to show the world the unity and courage of the nation’s youth.
The record for the world’s largest painting was previously held by Nigeria, where a 350-member team painted their country’s map on a 34,000 square foot canvas in 2010.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/03/24/city/lahore/students-paint-%E2%80%98world%E2%80%99s-largest-national-flag%E2%80%99/

LAHORE: A group of 1,000 or so students of colleges and universities from all over Punjab on Friday made the world’s largest painting – 41,685 square feet – at the National Hockey Stadium.

It is learnt that the previous record of 33,000 square-foot painting had been acclaimed by the Guinness World Records.

According to the organisers, the world’s largest painting was accomplished in seven hours. A large number of people attended the festivity at the stadium.

 

Purple Art & Communications Director Public Relations Salma Turab told Dawn the pervious record of the largest painting was made in Nigeria in 2010 and Pakistan had broken it. She however said none of the Guinness World Records representatives came here.

She said the international procedure had been followed and the aerial view of the artwork and videos were sent to the authorities of the Guinness World Records and they had declared it a new record.

“According to the rules of GWR, an architect appointed for the job measures the painting,” she said.

The participants kept painting with great enthusiasm amid rainbow of colours in and around the venue. Some of the participants were seen wearing hair wigs and draped in the colours of Pakistani flag.

It was the culmination of the third Annual Street Art Competition which started on March 4 in Lahore. The event was an initiative by the Message Welfare Trust and supported by Master Paints and aptly titled “The Colors of Pakistan”, an effort to show the ‘softer side’ of the country to bring the youth together to send the globe a positive message of peace and solidarity with the global village.

The world record rekindled the national spirit and created awareness about different cultures and historical representation important to the social fabric of this nation. The event was also supported by the Punjab government.

The students who took part in the competition were quite excited. Sana, one of the participants, told Dawn: “To paint the largest painting of the world is a great experience. But everybody is feeling tired because the whole exercise took a great effort.”

Tariq Awan said the youth of Pakistan through this painting wanted to send the message of peace and love across the world.

http://www.dawn.com/news/705018/pakistan-shines-through-worlds-largest-painting