Wonderful Wall of Wings Mural project

I recently finally got around to reading The Tipping Point. Part of the book talks about how disgusting NYC subways were in the 80's. They were riddled with crime and the transformation into making it a happier safer place started with cleaning up the graffiti on the trains. Making the space look nicer was a step in helping people feel nicer. People act like rats when they feel they're trapped in a rat hole. My school has a lovely campus with trees and playgrounds, but there are some ugly walls that needed a little help if we wanted our workspace to feel like it was a more positive environment.

The parking lot was resurfaced and the wall was power washed: a blank canvas for our paint.

We mixed paint colors and loaded rollers. Even my students who are totally blind could work a roller on a wall. It was almost impossible to do it wrong. Some students worked with brushes to go along the bottom and in the cracks, and the teamwork made for a major transformation in a few hours. Every student was assigned the task of sketching out three ideas for wings: We had bat wings, butterfly wings, steampunk wings, dragon fly wings, and more. When we looked at all of the sketches together students voted on their favorite ideas. Several people did peacock wings and several did dragon wings, so that helped tip the scales in their favor.

We drew the wings on walls with chalk first. I'd worried about weekend rain washing it awan, and so I spray painted a few simple outlines for some of the drawings. And then we painted each pair of wings with appropriate colors. This took longer than I expected because there were so many days of rain and freezing temperatures. Luckily the last week before our Winter Break, we had a few pleasant days when we could knock out the paintings to make a wing wall (between hanging our art show and putting the last parts of our student sale together). I can hardly wait to see students use the wall for a photo op and hopefully be inspired to improve themselves, as we have worked to improve our learning environment. 

 

Wall Mural

The school mural wall has been a hotter, harder, more rewarding art project than my students and I had anticipated. It took us two weeks to paint, with three hot work days, and two rainy recovery days in each week.

The first week we did the entire underpainting. You need no vision to use a paint roller on a cement wall. Students would pair up and one would do the edging while the other would work the roller. I'd come along behind with a paintbrush to blend large masses of color so that there was a gradual shift over the panels of concrete.

Students and I worked together to determine which words and which order to put them in. We decided to use verbs: command statements and tried to think of the most appropriate background colors and patterns would make the most sense with each word and how to create contrast the background with the foreground. It was the perfect way to learn and apply design principles.

We didn't have all of our ideas completely solidified when we started painting, and so we used chalk to lay in some of the wall.  We "erased" any of the patterns or words that we didn't end up using with paint brushes and water. I was impressed that some students with no vision could still draw without any tactile drawing tools.

I added Braille dots after the print words, to help fill up space and reinforce the Braille code.Students were looking for ways to include the rest of the school. I suggested that they each offer their handprint, but then there was a discussion on how the handprints could be arranged. We came up with the idea of a garden where the handprints were the flowers. We grow as individuals and we grow together.

I painted a pair of wings during a planning period. One student wants us to do a whole series of wings on the opposite side of the wall that we painted, but I think we'll save it for next year. In the meantime, I've been so pleased at the number of people who tell me they feel happier each day as they come to work and see the wall. Everyone deserves an environment that is makes them feel good.

 

Starting our Wall Mural

 My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there. -Jim Henson

Day 2: low vision students can add pattern

The retaining wall behind our school building has been an eyesore for at least a decade, and I've had several people ask me over the years if I would paint a mural on it. I really love the idea of making a physical space happier for people to live and work!! Unfortunately my feelings are almost as strong when it comes to my dislike for the paperwork involved with ordering paint and supplies. This is the year I bit the bullet and decided to go for it, and it goes along with our Art Movements unit in talking about American Regionalism and WPA murals.

My students and I are three days into the project and have already done the underpainting on one side of the wall, that consists of 17 eight-foot panels. We painted pattern on six of those panels, four of which were completed with large words on top of the panels. So happy!

Day 1: about 300 square feet of color underpainting

Day 2: activate the background

I started by having students write down inspiring words and filling sheets of paper with patterns and color. As a class we discussed which of these ideas would go best together and in what order, and then I did very rough sketches on how they might all work. Most of the time was spent figuring out the four panels by the picnic tables, and the six large ones around corner from the four. The last seven, we didn't have any concrete ideas about where it would go. Once we saw what colors we had finished, we thought about what was lacking. And the thing is, you never know how much paint it will take until you're mid project. Orange is yellow and red, but it turns out you need about 4 times as much yellow to make an orange, so we have to constantly evaluate how much of which color we have available. We are also adjusting the patterns and word size as we go along.

It is a lot of fun to work outside and have people stop to offer compliments and encouragement. It is not fun to work outside and have people stop and offer unsolicited advice and suggestions. The minute one sees a work in progress they make assumptions about where it is going and  share ideas about where it should go. I hope at least my students are learning to respect the process and stay true to their vision.

Out of this world Mural

They say that students never care what you know until they know how much you care. How do they know you care? By your listening intently to them talk about their interests, and letting them incorporate those interests into their classroom work.  I had one student who absolutely loved graffiti art, so I showed him examples of brilliant contemporary street art, then I gave him a can of spray paint and a wall.  Actually, he had to take the initiative in consulting the principal, finding a teacher to offer their wall, and coming up with the idea.  Then as a tiny team,  we made the sketches, and went to work.

Luckily, the science teacher was ready for a change from his large, off-white wall with a sun and the equation for photosynthesis. I took my three  students and we painted that wall black, around the sun.Then we recreated a sketch of the color system in chalk on the wall. We made a paper stencil to match each chalk planet, and hit it with a little spray paint.  The biggest challenges were creating ventilation (fans and open doors), making sure surfaces were covered before painting (and quickly wiping down those that weren't), and finally dealing with the equation coming through the layer of latex and spray paint.  We still need to go back and do a few more layers on Jupiter for that one to be fixed. I want my students know that I believe their ideas are worth pursuing even if they sometimes seem far-out.

Cyanotype Mural

A couple of months ago, my art students made a giant cyanotype mural which served as a backdrop for our Spring Art Show, and remains on the school lobby wall.  Emily Gomez, photography professor at Georgia College, introduced them to this process.  To make a cyanotype, a photosensitive solution of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate are added to a piece of fabric or paper. The dried surface is than placed in the sun with something on top to make a silhouette. After about 10 minutes, the surface is rinsed and the shape of the object blocking the sun remains light while the rest turns a beautiful dark, Prussian blue.

When I was a kid, my mom had us make cyanotype prints using paper snowflakes for Christmas cards.  Small pieces of fabric (that can be purchased at art stores like Dick Blick) were used by students to make hand prints. Several of the students, however, got to lie on the treated king-sized sheet and make prints of their bodies, canes, wheel chair, and large cut out letters. They'll never forget sun bathing, fully clothed in the middle of a busy college campus. And neither will I.