It took brushes, paints and plenty of creativity to create a colorful new school mural
By: Matthew Kirdahy
In June, art students at the Crossroads North Middle School were in the desert where they met lions and drank from an oasis populated by pink flamingos.
The 40-hour journey took them through open plains, misty mountains, blue oceans and wintry woodlands.
And since the once-in-a-lifetime trip is really a mural painted on the walls, they spared no expense.
The mural project, which a select group of 13 seventh and eighth grade art students painted, ended July 23 with a reception for parents. The artists spent much of that day putting on the finishing touches.
Art teacher Gayle Mihalko headed the project, titled "A Peaceable Kingdom."
"The idea was to complete a great entrance to the koi pond," Ms. Mihalko said. "This is a group of seventh- and eighth-graders working together using the colors, theories and concepts to paint this magnificent mural. There was lots of planning involved but it’s easier than they thought it would be. "
Ms. Mihalko said she would varnish the wall once the paint dried. The glossy finish would officially end the project and permanently seal the images, like Sean Monaghan’s monkey and pineapple, Emily Ayers dream imagery or Jen Low’s butterflies.
"The project is about placing and laying out things creatively where they look surreal," Ms. Mihalko said.
Jennifer Horng, 14, painted the outer layer of the pineapple Sean was painting. The tropical fruit floated in water painted at the top of the landscape. Jennifer also painted flamingos drinking from a desert oasis.
"We put the water up high to show the surrealism," Dan DeOlivira said.
Danielle Nemeth, Emily and Dan DeOlivira kneeled on a scaffolding so they could paint fish in the water.
Danielle painted water at the base of the mural as well. A snake-like creature with part of its body arched above the calm blue surface of the water stared at onlookers.
"I thought it would be cool to see something mysterious poking out of the water," Danielle said.
Near the monster’s lake, Andrew Calderone, 13, painted the Italian countryside. He included vineyards, the head of the statue of David and the leaning tower of Pisa.
"Painting the statue of David, trying to get the face perfect, was probably the hardest," Andrew said.
Emily, 14, painted images she said would appear in a dream. The pictures looked like something a person might see in a Dr. Seuss book.
"A dream is perfect," Emily said. "In a dream, there’s clouds, stars and music. I painted whatever came to mind. I want to paint something like this on my walls at home."
Dora Sobze, 12, painted an octopus whose red tentacles wove their way through a girl’s brown locks of hair. The girl is smelling a flower and her eyes are closed. Dora said she painted the girl, then thought it would be fun to have her smelling a flower.
"(The mural) is different than anything else," Dora said. "I’m usually doing sketching and painting on canvas."
Dora also painted Big Ben, a world famous clock in London that would normally have Roman numerals on its face. Dora replaced the Roman numeral five with the regular number five.
"I thought it would be cool to put a five there since we’re doing a surrealistic painting," Dora said.
Trisha Anderson, 14, painted a hummingbird, flowers, a jaguar and a parrot. On July 23 she crouched low, trying to perfect the hummingbird’s wings.
Sharon Liu painted blue-haired fairies that flew between the trees of a snow-covered forest. She based the images on the fantasy books she loves to read, she said.
Sharon also painted a dragon whose tail extended into the Great Wall of China. The tail seamlessly blends into the wall so you can’t tell where the dragon ends or wall begins.
Sharon said she painted the Great Wall because Ms. Mihalko said the artists could incorporate images based on their family heritage. With some family members native to China, Sharon said, it was a good idea to add the dragon and the world-famous wall.
"All of the different personalities and talents are reflected in this mural," Ms. Mihalko said.
When asked if she would look every time she walked by the mural as an eighth-grader come September, Sharon smiled.
"Probably," she said.
Ms. Mihalko said her students told her that they doubted the mural would turn out as well as it did. They didn’t doubt the project, just their ability at times. At first, it seemed like a lot of work to them, she said.
The students met before summer and started to sketch and plan the mural. When school closed in June they spent three hours each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday painting.
"They sat back after the first couple of days and started to asked each other about the project, what they should paint and that’s what I wanted," Ms. Mihalko said. "They didn’t have any idea of what the finished product would look like until they finally pulled back, looked at it, and it all came together. This is the last day. It’s really sad."