by Bonnie Collings
A new mural with a focus on messages of gratitude and the beauty of local wildlife was unveiled at That Yellow Door Café in Warragul on Saturday.

Transforming the rustic, chipboard wall into a vibrant and colourful space, the mural was created by local artists Jo Draisma and Nicole Smith.
Café co-owner Lisa Mitchell said the vision for the wall was artwork created by the community, for the community to enjoy.
"We wanted to give it a facelift and do something in line with the café and get the community involved in creating something," Lisa said.
The café posted a call out for local artists on its Facebook page and soon enough the responses were filled with people recommending their favourite artists.
Jo and Nicole took on the collaborative task of creating the mural, each focused on a specific part.
Nicole's main focus for the mural was incorporating her love of birds into the work, as well as connecting with the cafe's yellow branding.
"Lisa had mentioned that she loved yellow-tailed black cockatoos, and I love painting them," Nicole said. "And it also fits with the branding and creates energy in the space."
For Jo, incorporating messages of gratitude was a central focus.
"My concept (for the mural) goes back to my roots as an art teacher," Jo explained. "Art is a therapeutic process and art is for everyone. My idea was to get people to decorate (the wall) with messages of gratitude so that everyone is involved in the mural, not just Nicole and I."
After a period of planning and discussion and creating digital mock-ups, the mural design was finalised, featuring a series of yellow-tailed black cockatoos and yellow silhouettes of flowers on a black background.
The black background was painted with blackboard paint, meaning customers and community members could add their messages of gratitude to the mural and colour in the flower silhouettes with chalk.
Over the past few weeks, Jo and Nicole have been in the café most days working on the mural.
"I started by priming it (the wall) and doing a couple of coats of the blackboard paint," Jo said. "Nicole came in and started drawing the birds, and then I did the flowers."
"Each bird took me about two days because of all the details," Nicole said.
During their time working in the cafe, Nicole and Jo said they'd had plenty of positive feedback from customers watching on.
"The customers here are really beautiful, they're really friendly," Jo said.
"The feedback has been beautiful," Nicole added.
The mural was officially unveiled at the café on Saturday, surrounded by community members eager to contribute their messages and designs.
"I didn't imagine it could be this great," Lisa said. "We knew we wanted to do something, but the vision has really come together through the collaboration with (Jo and Nicole)."