Kiwi mapping digital art running around Melbourne

Peter Mitchell creates digital contour art tracing his running routes around Melbourne.

Peter Mitchell world map through Melbourne.
Photo: Supplied/Peter Mitchell

A Kiwi runner has been creating art with digital GPS maps and creative running routes – his designs have gone viral, with others joining in to trace his designs across Melbourne.

Peter Mitchell uses GPS to map the contours of projects on a digital map of Melbourne. He then traces the perimeter of the lines with his running path, which the app tracks as he goes – think of his footprints as a paintbrush, drawing digital lines as he runs.

The sketch routes are then saved in the app he uses to record runs – and other people can see them and do the same run too.

His latest creation, to celebrate his 50th birthday – a giant world map.

“It took me almost a few nights… the previous ones were nothing like that, they were much shorter and didn’t take as long, but this was a little more challenging.

“It’s evolved a lot, I’ve been doing it for about four years. In the early days it kind of… felt like something, then you’d maybe go back and try to make it feel a little more like something.”

But their projects and routes got better, more complex and bigger.

Photo: Supplied/Peter Mitchell

One of Mitchell’s earliest creations that gained the most attention was a large sketch of Big Bird that he created with his local running group.

“Everyone saw it on a few apps — and word of mouth, and then a few hundred people ran it — and I kept designing from there.”

So where most mere mortals have daily GPS running routes that look like a crazy ant or a drunk zigzagging across a map, Mitchell has created images of a koala, a guitar, favorite cartoon characters and the Olympics emblem.

Peter Mitchell, with his map made from the calligraphy of the Japanese Kanji character for ‘run’, which he found at the Kyoto Marathon.
Photo: Supplied/Peter Mitchell

Earlier this year, he created a large sketch of Australia for Australia Day, which got a lot of attention.

Going out running to create the designs has been “interesting,” he says.

“I really like that, because honestly you have no idea what’s going to happen once you’re on the ground, because in a lot of these places – especially these longer races – I have no idea in the suburbs where I’ve never run. these areas before.

Photo: Supplied/Peter Mitchell

“I’m basically following where my watch tells me to go – often with a friend so we can help each other.

“A lot of times you get somewhere and think ‘I should be able to walk right through there’ and then you get there and for some reason that park has a 6-foot fence all the way around it.”

Photo: Supplied/Peter Mitchell

The length of your world map is about 170 km.

To fit in New Zealand, Mitchell said he ended up having to place it closer to Australia than it would have been in scale, and with the Banks Peninsula – where Mitchell is originally from – created by passing through a funeral director’s parking lot.

His art is available to view on his Instagram page, which has the handle ‘GPS ART GURU’.