Kiwi mapping digital art by running across Melbourne

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

Peter Mitchell uses GPS to map the outlines of designs onto 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 outline of the routes are then saved to the app he uses to record runs - and others can see them, and also do the same run too.

His latest creation, to mark his 50th birthday - a giant world map.

"It took me the best part of a couple of nights ... the previous ones were nothing like that, they were a lot smaller and they didn't take me as long, but this was a bit more challenging.

"It's evolved quite a bit, I've been doing it for about four years. Early days it was sort of like ... it kind of sort of looked like something, then you went maybe back and tried to make it look a bit more like something."

But his designs and the routes got better, and more intricate and larger.

One of Mitchell's first creations that caught wider attention was a large Big Bird outline he created with his local running group.

"Everybody saw it on some of the apps - and word of mouth, and next thing a few hundred people have run it - and I kept designing from there."

So where most mere mortals have daily GPS jogging routes that look like a mad ant or a zig zagging drunk across a map, Mitchell has been creating images of a koala, a guitar, favourite cartoon characters, and the Olympics emblem.

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

Going out for a run to create the designs has been "interesting", he says.

"I quite enjoy that, because you honestly have no idea what's going to happen when you're on the ground, because a lot of these places - particularly these longer runs - I have no idea of those suburbs I've never run in that those areas before.

"I'm basically following where my watch tells me to go - often with a friend so we can both sort of help each other.

"Often you'll get somewhere and you think 'I should be able to go straight through there' and then you get there and for some reason that park's got a 6 foot fence all the way around it."

The length of his world map is about 170km.

To fit New Zealand Mitchell said he ended up having to put it closer to Australia than it would be to scale, and with Banks Peninsula - where Mitchell is originally from - created by running through a funeral director's car park.

His art is available to see on his Instagram page, which has the handle 'GPS ART GURU'.