Students between two classes were divided into four groups and decided on "The Four Seasons" as a theme.
The eight students in both classes were "Team Leads", coordinating progress from day to day between two groups who do not have class together.
Students were challenged to
- Achieve cohesion within their season
- Achieve a cohesive flow from one season to the next
- Creatively incorporate naturally existing protrusions
- Challenge themselves to build some painting skills!
The eight students in both classes were "Team Leads", coordinating progress from day to day between two groups who do not have class together.
Students were challenged to
- Achieve cohesion within their season
- Achieve a cohesive flow from one season to the next
- Creatively incorporate naturally existing protrusions
- Challenge themselves to build some painting skills!
Spring
Suri
This quarter, our art class took on the ginormous job of painting the entire cafeteria. Now, a quarter is only nine weeks, or 63 days. Take away the weekends and you’re left with 45 days. 45 days is a short amount of time to paint an entire cafeteria, even with 30-40 people. Nonetheless, I was excited. Mural painting is an experience I think everyone should have, working with different textures, around already made blockages, and on ladders/in hard to reach places is a skill every artist should have, in my humble opinion. Being a group leader, aka someone who is in art every day of the week, I got even more experience in designing a mural and working with others that I may not like the most or who have different views for the final product than I do. In the end, I feel that I overcame both of those struggles. As for my part in the mural, in the broadest sense, it was spring. Spring is the part of the mural that my groups worked on. The smaller elements of spring that I worked on would be; the waterfall, the sunrise, and the rainbow. Of course, I helped with other things, but I don’t want to steal the spotlight from someone who spent much more time than I did on something. I didn’t use many special techniques, wet paint blending to put movement and uniformity in the sunrise, more blending and stippling for the texture in the spray of the waterfall, those such things. There wasn’t a whole ton of technical skill in my part of the mural. Productivity has never really been my strong suit. I have a bad habit of getting very easily distracted and proceeding to never get myself back on track. So, as one could imagine, I struggled being a leader/role model. Deb had to speak to me multiple times about getting on track, being quiet, doing what I was supposed to do, etc. Though I do struggle with productivity, I do feel I have the ability to be a strong leader. I attribute that to the fact that I’m a naturally loud and attention commanding person. While a leader was most definitely needed for the mural in the beginning, with our planning of what was going on the wall and organizing it, as the quarter progressed, my leadership skills were needed less and less, as others got a hold on what they felt needed to happen and took initiative. Of course, just like any group project, I occasionally needed to step in and help to fix or orchestrate some part of the mural, but for the most part, I painted my parts of the mural and let others do what they felt was needed. In all, it was a fun, hectic, clothing ruining, and loud quarter, but I enjoyed it, and though I didn’t learn much about painting, I discovered quite a bit of skill in people I had previously underestimated. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it, from planning the placement of the seasons, to choosing our groups, to putting the first bit of paint on the wall, to rushing our final details as the nine weeks went faster than anyone could have imagined. Looking back, my time management could have been improved on greatly, as could my willingness to help, but I’m proud of the work I did, as well as the work of my groups, and the work of everyone in both classes. Billie
For the final quarter of the art elective this year we planned to cover a large area of our school in a single, cohesive mural. Our school decided that the cafeteria was in need of a new paint job. After finding out the location of the mural we split into groups and brainstormed ideas for the theme of the mural. We later landed on a four seasons theme. Going into this project I was not excited. The idea of having to work with a large group of students with extremely different art styles to create something was, to say the least, unappealing. My group was assigned the season of spring. My most major contribution were the three large, pop art style mountains in the center of the season. The mountains have thick lines bordering them, gray bases, and multicolored tops. I was very interested in the juxtaposition of styles within our single mural, so I created the bold mountains to sit in direct contrast with the realistic nature scene surrounding them. My intention was for them to be one of the main points of emphasis on our team’s section of the cafeteria wall. Around halfway through the project I noticed that one season in particular, fall, seemed to be struggling. I took it upon myself to step in and help them so that they would be able to have a finished area by the end of the quarter. I helped give texture to their main tree, paint multiple wooden produce boxes under the lunch counter, and paint the sky. I tried my best to keep others on track as well as myself, taking into consideration the reality of how quickly nine weeks pass. I had a lot of fun experimenting with painting on different surfaces and trying to emulate a variety of textures. This experience helped me to learn how to work well in a team--even if I may not always share their viewpoints. Most importantly I learned that sometimes you need to take things into your own hands in order for them to get completed, and you may have to disregard the fear of being seen as controlling or bossy. |
Ian
Originally I didn’t think that I could help with the creation of the mural in any meaningful way. In the past I haven’t shown much artistic skill. I assumed that I would just paint background colors and answer questions about where to paint. What I actually painted far exceeded what I expected to paint. I think that my largest contribution to the mural was the original idea for the theme of the four seasons. While working on spring, I painted most of the flowers, and some of the grass. Later in the quarter, while working on fall, I painted the fields of wheat behind the turkey. I attempted to layer the wheat, which ended up looking not exactly how I was hoping, but better than I was expecting. I was one of the team leaders, and while my other team leader liked to think of herself as the main team leader, I think I did my job well enough. I advised several people in spring, and a few people in fall. You might be able to recognize the art I advised, and painted because I worked on a lot of repeating patterns, such as the flowers in spring. I think I made mistakes while painting the forest in spring, and that I goofed off to much in the middle of the quarter. I think I could have painted the forest better if I had taken more time, and gotten more advice from more experienced painters. I think that I definitely got better as a painter during this quarter, as the work I’m most proud of was also the last one I did. I think that I went into the quarter wanting to paint as little as possible, and came out wanting to paint as much as possible. And I think that some of the most important additions I made to the mural were the ideas that I let others make better, and create. Kai
In art this quarter we have been working on painting the cafeteria. Each of the four walls are a different seasons that blend together. Going into this project I thought the idea was a bit unrealistic time wise but mostly I was just really excited and nervous especially seeing as I’ve never painted on the school walls before. I mostly worked on the winter part of spring, which is a small section of spring consisting of a large pine tree, some smaller pine trees, dark clouds, night sky and some snow. I also worked on grass on the fall wall. Some techniques I used that I hadn’t really explored before are watering down paint to make transitions in color for the sky and the clouds, I explored a new splatter painting technique where you water down some paint and dip your pointer finger in it and then flick the paint in the direction you want it to go, I used this kind of splatter painting because it is easier to get it where you want the paint to go than if you do the traditional splatter paint with a brush, I used the splatter paint to make falling snow. I’m not good at leading things but I believe in leading by example so I asked for lots of constructive criticism and tried to do as much as I could with 100% focus. I also gave sincere constructive criticism out when ever I was asked for some. I worked to remind others to help clean up and do my best to make sure everything was clean at the end of the period. I think it would be super cool if other groups did projects like this in 7th and 8th grade. It is an amazing learning experience, it helps with working in groups and how to divide and conquer. I also learned a lot about mixing paints, I learned this quarter that when you mix complementary colors they become more neutral. Elsa
For fourth quarter art class we were going to paint the whole cafeteria! I was so excited and had a lot of ideas for themes. We ended up going with the seasons theme and I was assigned spring along with Suri, Yoko, Karrine, Gillian and some other people whose names I can’t remember at the moment. I started painting the deer in the mushroom patch, though it didn’t turn out how I would have liked due to some miscommunication with the Monday/Wednesday/Friday people. I also finished up a blue bird, a bird that is blue not specifically a Blue Bird, that Yoko had started, and painted some wild flowers flowers in the meadow. All of these things I thought were things that represent spring pretty well. Gillian ended up working on the deer a little too and I watched her modify the shape of the head and I really was amazed by the shape and perspective she gave it. At one point the bird I talked about earlier wasn’t getting finished so I pitched in. I also came up with the idea for the hot air balloon! I really enjoyed this last quarter in art class and learned a lot by observing others while they worked. The way that winter painted the snow behind the snowman, smudging with their hands, was really cool. And like I mentioned earlier I made a mental note to pay more attention to perspective and shape when I’m drawing. I had a lot of fun painting and the cafeteria looks so much more interesting. I think everyone did a great job. |
Summer
Chloe
The fourth quarter art elective class for the seventh and eighth grade was mural painting. We got the option to paint the cafeteria. Our class collaborated to decide a theme, which ended up being the four seasons. From there we split up into groups and had two team leaders (who were the five day art people). There were four groups every day working on the mural, and each group got a section of the cafeteria (i.e. summer, spring, winter, fall). I think that one of the main issues concerning this project is that certain people couldn’t get along with others, so figuring out which group to put people in got difficult. I worked on several different parts of the mural because I was one of the team leaders, and that meant that I also had to make sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. Some of the different parts I contributed to were the fish in the water, the mixing for the sand color for the beach, the water on the insides of the doorways, aspects of the grass for the meadow, etc. I knew I wanted to paint some of the fish because they are so many different kinds and I thought it would be cool to think of interesting types to paint. Most of the other parts I painted were because someone needed them to be painted and I didn’t have anything else to do at the time. I used a variety of different paint brushes to paint. Some parts of the mural needed painting and no one was painting them so I stepped up and did them. Sometimes some of my teammates would be stuck on a part of their work and would ask for constructive criticism. I got told a couple of times to focus on my work and not be distraction to my friends and getting distracted. I could have focus more on my work instead of chatting with my friends so I could get more done during the short period given. I think that this project has taught me how to work better in a group with people I might not always talk to. I think that it’s cool to see so many different types of painting styles create one big masterpiece. It was fun to experiment and collaborate with different people and hear some amazing ideas and see them come to life. Ava L
Over the course of one single quarter, we were able to transform the cafeteria into a vibrant, colorful display of the changing seasons. The cafeteria is covered from top to bottom in a highly detailed mural. With such a large team working on the mural, we were able to incorporate so many different ideas into one piece. Going into the project, I thought we might be biting off more than we could chew, and that we might not finish in time, or even make significant progress. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of work and dedication that went into our mural, and I am very impressed. I was part of the summer team, and mainly focused on the animals in summer. I spent the majority of my time painting the bear in summer. I also painted a little tiny bee outside of the beehive, which I’m pretty proud of. The bear is reaching up to grab a beehive, which is located in the tree above him. (although I’ve been told many times that it kind of looks like he’s dancing). I found the shading and highlights on the bear to be the most difficult part. Because of how dark the bear is, adding shadows wasn’t really an option. So instead, I had to work only with highlights. In the end, this ended up looking a little weird and unbalanced. Another trouble was that the bear was too dark to paint a visible face on, so that’s kind of an issue. Overall, I’m not thrilled with the way the bear turned out, I think the shape is pretty off, and it looks pretty flat and 2-dimensional. Oh yeah, and he doesn’t have a face. To be honest, I wasn’t very much of a leader in this project. With the amount of group leaders and natural leaders all in this project, I don’t think being a leader was necessary for me to be successful. I offered constructive criticism when it was wanted, and tried my best to stay on task. I think that planning ahead of time would have definitely bettered my additions to this mural. I think that if I had thought about it ahead of time, that maybe the bear wouldn’t be so dark, and I could actually balance out the highlights with some very much needed shadows. I think this project was not only a great way for each artist to have their work displayed, but also a wonderful team-building exercise. I think this project literally helped people put their ideas together, and learn to adapt to someone else’s ideas. I think the cafeteria is a wonderful mix of everyone’s artwork, and a piece that future students will enjoy for years to come. Rocket
When I signed up for the murals elective, I thought we would separate into small groups and create small murals in a hallway. Little did I know that we’d be painting the entire cafeteria. When Deb explained that the cafeteria would be separated into four sections with about 7-10 people each, I wasn’t that intimidated. But when we walked into the cafeteria, as Deb was showing where the sections were, my heart sank. I thought there was no way we could paint all that in only nine weeks. The first few classes I was constantly in fear of not finishing on time, constantly in fear of making an unfixable, awful mistake. That changed soon, though. The first few classes, I didn’t take initiative at all. I wandered around shyly, trying to find something to do that wouldn’t be too bad if I messed it up horribly like I was expecting to. But my group captains quickly found me something to do. But sadly, I messed it up by using the darkest shade of blue at the shore of the beach, when I was supposed to start at the bottom, and gradually shade it into a light blue at the shoreline. When I came back the next class, someone had fixed it. Now I wasn’t too worried about making a huge mistake, because I knew that the rest of my group would pick up paintbrushes and help me fix it. Once that was over, I mostly did small roles, like painting the background sky. After doing that for a while, I was working on some shading. Shading helped me learn more about unity and texture. After that, I was working on details on the beach. I tried at first to make humans, but I struggled to get the proportion right. I eventually ended up doing small details like crabs and shadows. Because even though little crabs might not be the emphasis of the beach, I always appreciate the small details in paintings. I made the crabs by taking recklessness of kindergarteners and turning it around to my advantage. I found this paintbrush that younger kids had plucked almost all the bristles out of, and I used that to make a really fine brush that I could use to make the small details on my crabs. |
J
This quarter we painted a mural in the cafeteria. We first chose four groups, each with two five day team heads, and designated wall space. Then we brainstormed theme ideas for the mural, settling on the four seasons. I was very excited to work on this because I had never done such a big painting project, and thought that the four seasons was a really cool idea. I was a teamhead for summer, and came up with the idea for the beach and the fish. I painted the summer side of the rainbow, the purple jellyfish in one of the doorways, the fox in the summer meadow, and the grass in the summer meadow. For the jellyfish, I incorporated a square coming out of the wall for the body. For the fox, I shaded the legs farther away to give it depth. For the grass, I had four different shades of green, and one active brush going between them. I did strokes going up, and tried to evenly disperse every color. When no one wanted to paint the grass, I stepped up and did it. When other people wanted to paint the fish, I stepped back and let them do it. I encouraged others to keep painting and gave positive feedback. I came to the Art-A-Thon and worked on the mural after school a few times. I think that this was a great project, and I really had a lot of fun doing it. It was a great leadership opportunity for me, and I learned how to work with people in a group from that position of leadership. I also learned paint techniques such as scumbling, and how to mix specific colors of paint. It was also a lesson in time management, and how to juggle working on multiple things at once. Overall I am grateful for the chance to work on this mural and I am really happy with the way it turned out. Felicity
For the fourth quarter of this school year, both the Monday/Wednesday/Friday class and the Tuesday/Thursday class came together to design and paint a mural of the four seasons in the cafeteria. At the beginning of the 9 weeks, I was really excited! My skepticism arose about halfway through the project and I was doubtful that we would be able to get it done. But now I know that if everyone works hard enough, we can accomplish it. I was put into the MWF summer group with Chloe, Naomi, J and Jane. My contribution to the project was primarily the tree next to the lunch window. I used about 7 different shades to paint the trunk, which was an element of the tree I think I worked a little too long on. Despite that, I was soon able to paint the many different colors of leaves. I used reds, oranges, greens, yellows and browns to blend the leaves of my tree into the leaves of the tree in fall. Other things I worked on included the beehive, the clouds, a tree trunk in fall, and some of the blending of the sky. I think I was one of the main people in my group who really tried to push people to get things done. At one point, we had hardly anything on the wall because most of my group was working on the fish in the ocean. I told everyone we needed to paint the sky in order to get something on that wall, and we did. And everyone felt much better about the project after we did that. I also tried my best to encourage people along the way about the things they were working on, especially if they weren’t too enthusiastic about how it looked. I tried to be as productive as I could at all times and I didn’t waste any time. All in all, I’m very happy with how this project is going and how it I think it will end up looking. I learned so much from this quarter, including which colors to mix and how to use the correct technique with the paintbrush. I’m excited to continue working on it and keep getting things done! Naomi K
When I first heard that we were planning on painting the entire cafeteria, I thought it was a big job and that it probably wouldn’t be finished by the end of the year. I felt a little better once we planned out how everything was going to work and how we were going to get it done, and once we got started (like what happens with almost any project) the project seemed to take off. I was assigned to work on the summer season. The first thing I worked on was the ocean with Jane and Chloe. Once we ran out of paint for it, I helped J with the beach. Once we finished that, I decided to help with the fish that were going to be underwater. First I did the rainbow fish from the book (which took a bit longer than expected), then I worked on the turtle, Squirt, from Finding Nemo. I also spent one class helping my whole group finish the summer sky. I didn’t do much leadership in my group, but I helped the fall group by suggesting the idea for the U of M barn. I also helped Jane and Chloe with their fish when they needed to finish them up quickly. I learned a lot about murals this quarter. I’ve never painted on walls (besides painting a room one color) so I had to learn different techniques to help the paint look good and make the things I was painting look like what I was trying to make them look like. It was especially fun working on the waves in the ocean. I learned how to paint with water to help it look like there was texture. I also learned a little more about working in groups. It was nice to have the two leaders, then I always knew who I could talk to if I had any questions or needed something to work on. I had a lot of fun helping with this mural and It’s really cool to see how much progress we’ve made. It’s hard to imagine that the walls used to be completely blank. I can’t wait to enjoy looking at all of the wonderful art next year! Marina
This quarter, the art class painted one huge mural in the cafeteria. Everyone was divided into one of the four groups, for the theme, the four seasons. We were allowed to change up the different styles of art like graphic, realistic or a cartoon look, so the cafeteria has a variety of styles. I was put in the summer group. At first I worked on making the sand for the beach, then I switched over to painting the the sky and clouds over the beach. After I finished that, I asked what I could do and they said I could work on the sky over the meadow. The problem was that the meadow and the beach sky where two completely different shades of blue, so blending the two blues also came part of my job, which I worked on with Rocket. I am not really a leader, but when some people said something of theirs did not look good, I told them a tip on how to make it better and how it looked really good. And I told someone that, in the summer field it would look nice if we put in some dandelions, This quarter I learned that tempera paint should not be used on walls, unless you want the murals to wash away, or look like the peeling off mural near the stairs. I also learned about the many, many different styles of painting. And how to work together as a team on a project, know how to collaborate, and listen to others comments and suggestions. |
Fall
Ilana
This quarter in art class, we began painting a mural in the cafeteria of all the four seasons. Different people would work on different seasons. Each season has its own area in the cafeteria. I think it is creative, and very enjoyable to look at. Going into this project I was excited, but I thought we would not be able to finish the mural before the end of the year- however I was very wrong. I made the biggest contribution to the Fall area. I worked on painting some of the pumpkins, which are lined up on the lower half of the wall close to the floor. I also helped paint some of the fall leaves, which were on top and surrounding the tree which is near to the clock in the cafeteria. I found we used lots of shape and texture in the leaves. There is also a black cat to the left of the pumpkins, I worked on its face. I helped out a little with the flowers in the spring area as well. One example where I showed “leadership” was probably when I gave my group (fall) constructive criticism. Another, is helping others with their work. The choices I made on some occasions in terms of productivity were not the best. This is because it makes the whole mural process go slower, and everyone needs to participate and help out. It would have been much better if I worked harder. So, overall, I have learned that I need to force myself to be more productive. Not just in art, but in general. I have also learned that you can really get stuff done and surprise yourself if you put in the effort needed. One more thing, is not to waste paint! Maggie J
The project we did in 2-Day Art was a painted mural spanning across the walls of the cafeteria. The theme of the mural was the 4 seasons. I thought the topic was interesting, and I was looking forward to helping work on it. The project was challenging but fun, and I think I got a lot of experience in painting from it. It also helped me learn more about art projects and what it’s like to contribute to one. I was satisfied with the overall finished results of the mural. The part of the mural I worked on was the Autumn/Fall section. It spans across the right wall of the cafeteria to the back wall, but most of it is on the right wall. The left side has a few painted crates filled with various produce items, such as apples and butternut squash. It then moves into a small hill, and there are a lot of other details that were worked hard on by various members of the Autumn/Fall team. However, the things that I think were the most noticeable were the trees, which were pretty colorful and took up most of the space on the wall. There were quite a few ideas for concept designs that were eventually either scrapped, changed, or used. The only tools used for it were a wide spectrum of different sized brushes and different colors of paint, along with a stepladder to reach the higher parts of the mural. I tried to be flexible in the process of creating the mural. I didn’t have very many leadership moments. I felt like I was on track for the majority of the project. I don’t remember any instances where I was spoken to about productivity. I participated by helping with clean-up tasks and trying to be as productive as I could with the project. Overall, I enjoyed the art project of the quarter. I feel like I got experience in being in a group project and working on a mural. I also feel that the project encouraged me to be more productive and stay on-track. It showed how staying passionate to a project and getting along with your teammates could help move it along smoother and quicker. |
Duncan
Over the course of a quarter we painted a mural covering the entire cafeteria. The theme was the four seasons, but aside from that you could put in anything you wanted as long as your group agreed to it. Being a team leader, I got to help plan out what was going to be the main features of the mural at the start of the quarter. Going in to this quarter I thought it would be interesting to see how those ideas would be carried out. The main part of the mural that I worked on was the large tree in fall located next to the door to the kitchen. The tree was meant to be one of the biggest parts of fall, and it was made in the style of Leonid Afremov, an American-Israeli modern impressionistic painter. We decided to make this one part of the mural because trees with red and orange leaves are generally one the first things that comes to mind when you think of fall. To make the leaves, we had several different colors of paint, and then used large brushes to paint short strokes of different colors. The main elements and principles used to make the tree were color and pattern. Towards the end of the quarter I also helped Cody finish the stained glass mountains behind the snowman in winter. The project was going slowly, so I started working on it to try and finish it before the year ended. I was spoken to about productivity once this quarter, while I was waiting for Ian to to finish mixing paints instead of starting to work on what I could of the mural to help get it finished. Overall, I think I could have gotten to work a bit faster and worked a little harder. In conclusion, I think the mural turned out pretty okay, but I think it would have gone better if people had communicated, listened and worked together better. At the start, I thought that the groups were really bad, because people didn’t get along or work together well, but over the course of the class, things got better and better. When I signed up for this class, I had envisioned something very different than painting the cafeteria, but it turned out to be pretty fun. Alexandra
We made a giant mural on the cafeteria wall of the four seasons. This was the only art class I took this year. I feel that painting is the only form of art that I’m decent at. So I was waiting for an art elective that involved a lot of painting. I was in the winter group for about 25-30% of the quarter then I switched to fall for the remaining part of the year, because they needed more help. So far I have painted a majority of fall’s sunset/sunrise, painted the big light pole, painted corn, the big road going into a vanishing point, grass underneath the farm, and the snowman in winter. My goal by the end of the year is to hopefully finish the corn in fall, and finish the connection between fall and winter. My plan is to do fallen frosted over leaves turning into the icy snow in winter. I noticed that a different area of the room (wasn’t my season) needed more help than my group. So I went over and started working with a big section of blank wall in fall. I will hopefully finish by the end of the year but I probably won’t. I’m going to ask someone to help me with it on Thursday. I also need to talk to Naomi about the hedgehog. I thought that this quarter was really fun, and if you do another big mural elective or a painting elective I will definitely join. The mural looks amazing. If you need help finishing it over the summer I’d be happy to help. Overall I think I’ve done a good job on the mural and I’m proud of myself. |
Brandon
In the final quarter of this school year, a group of art students gathered together and painted the cafeteria. We chose the four seasons as a topic and created a wonderful mural based on the seasons. At first I was very nervous about the project but as time went on, I was feeling better about it.
I worked on painting produce crates pretty much for the whole time. They look like medium-sized boxes filled with fruit and they are under the counter where you get food in the cafeteria. Nobody else wanted to do it. I used pencil for the outline and paint to fill it in. I didn’t use any special techniques.
When no one else wanted to work on the boxes, I did. And they turned out kinda good. I helped with the stadium and the trees in winter. I spent too long on the outline and I wish I did it a little faster. It would’ve made more time for me to work on the actual project.
Through this quarter, I learned how to plan my time, and paint much better. I have a new love (and hate) for painting and I would love (and hate) to do this again.
In the final quarter of this school year, a group of art students gathered together and painted the cafeteria. We chose the four seasons as a topic and created a wonderful mural based on the seasons. At first I was very nervous about the project but as time went on, I was feeling better about it.
I worked on painting produce crates pretty much for the whole time. They look like medium-sized boxes filled with fruit and they are under the counter where you get food in the cafeteria. Nobody else wanted to do it. I used pencil for the outline and paint to fill it in. I didn’t use any special techniques.
When no one else wanted to work on the boxes, I did. And they turned out kinda good. I helped with the stadium and the trees in winter. I spent too long on the outline and I wish I did it a little faster. It would’ve made more time for me to work on the actual project.
Through this quarter, I learned how to plan my time, and paint much better. I have a new love (and hate) for painting and I would love (and hate) to do this again.
Nora
This quarter, I participated in an art project elective. Our task was to split into groups, and paint our designated areas of the cafeteria. The theme was seasons and I was part of the group that did autumn. I was very excited to get to practice my painting skills and work on such a big project.
In my groups section of the mural, I contributed most to the painting of a squirrel in the left branches of our tree. I also contributed by painting many of the leaves on the tree and working on the produce in the crates.
One time, our group leader was absent, and I stepped up by making sure I knew what everyone was doing. That day, I also checked up on everyone and made sure that they were getting things done, and I finished my work on the squashes in the crates. There were also some incidents when my fellow group members were being inappropriate, and it was making my friend and myself uncomfortable. I talked to our teacher and it was taken care of.
I very much enjoyed painting with my group during this elective. I was happy to take part in a large project like this. I wish I could have stayed for the last week and seen the rest of the progress we made.
This quarter, I participated in an art project elective. Our task was to split into groups, and paint our designated areas of the cafeteria. The theme was seasons and I was part of the group that did autumn. I was very excited to get to practice my painting skills and work on such a big project.
In my groups section of the mural, I contributed most to the painting of a squirrel in the left branches of our tree. I also contributed by painting many of the leaves on the tree and working on the produce in the crates.
One time, our group leader was absent, and I stepped up by making sure I knew what everyone was doing. That day, I also checked up on everyone and made sure that they were getting things done, and I finished my work on the squashes in the crates. There were also some incidents when my fellow group members were being inappropriate, and it was making my friend and myself uncomfortable. I talked to our teacher and it was taken care of.
I very much enjoyed painting with my group during this elective. I was happy to take part in a large project like this. I wish I could have stayed for the last week and seen the rest of the progress we made.
Wade
Since this is my last one of these weird little art essay things I want to make it my best. This quarter was the most daunting for me. Paint is without a doubt the hardest artistic medium for me to work with. ‘Hate’ would be a bit strong of a word to use about my feelings toward painting, but ‘dislike’ would be too soft. I think one of the reasons that I don’t like painting that much is that I never really learned how to do it that well. The art teachers at Open kept leaving. One year we just had, like, three long-term subs. Sarah Winter was one of the best teachers. She stayed for around three years before leaving to go teach art in a high school, but didn’t really teach kids many specific principles and stuff ‘til they got older. Which is understandable, ‘cause before she taught at Open she had taught high-schoolers. So I never really learned any actual techniques or principles that would help in painting. I think that because of this I sort of became ‘afraid’ to paint stuff. Deb expects people to actually, have received an art education before coming to her class. Which is Totally reasonable and sensical. I never really got that, to me, art had always been a class for randomized creativity and socialization. Not actual work and learning. I know that others actually, learned things in art class, so I can’t just be absolved of all blame for not doing well enough simply because my teachers were wonky when I was a child. Some of it is obviously my fault too.. Maybe I just didn’t ask the right questions or something. Well crap, it appears that I’ve let this sink down into an endless pit of psychoanalysis. (Believe me. I could do this for days.) Anyways, I was pretty pessimistic about this project, and thought that I would do about as well as I did. The prospect of making a huge mural in the cafeteria wasn’t exactly enjoyable for me. (Giddly God! That was a huge paragraph!)
In this new paragraph I’m supposed to write about what I contributed to the mural. The theme of the entire thing was ‘The Four Seasons’ which seems pretty tacky in writing. Though at the time I was just relieved that the theme wasn’t something about food. I found the idea of giant food decorating the walls of the lunchroom weirdly unappetizing. I was in the Fall group. We chose the section of wall surrounding the counter because it was the smallest, you can tell a lot about the sort of people we were just from that decision. (I don’t know about three-day Fall, but two-day fall weren’t exactly exemplary art students. [especially me]) I spent most of my time semi-subconsciously trying to avoid doing actual painting. Because (frankly) my painting skills are crap, and I think I subconsciously reasoned that I shouldn’t try to learn how to paint after everyone else had already done so because then they would think I was stupid because my painting skills were so bad. Which was probably a social instinct left over from hanging out with mean kids in first and second grade. (Wow. I’m learning a lot about myself while writing this.) So instead of actually working on the mural I would mix up certain colors for people, and it would take forever because I’m really picky about colors for some reason (probably another subconscious evasion technique) and I never learned any techniques for mixing paints. (Though it’s not that hard at all, just mix the two diddly darn paints.) Or I would get drop cloths, or help clean spilled paint off the floor. Still being helpful while not actually contributing. Also I just didn’t know what to do, all the ideas I had were impossible for me to paint. So I barely actually painted any parts of the mural. All I did was work a fair bit on the leaves, touch up the tree, and paint a few more branches and an entire corner of blue sky. I think one of the reasons I chose to work on the leaves was because they were easy. All I had to do was take a few fall colors and paint a ton of crude squares with a wide brush. Though it was easy I really like the way it turned out. The texture shown is really clear, sort of soft, but still with swooping angles that made distinct shapes. I love how well Felicity blended the styles of the Spring tree and the Fall tree. Changing their almost fuzzy indistinct leaves into our lined semi-geometric ones. The hardest bit was definitely the branches, the brown I made was a different color than the one originally used on the tree, so I had to blend and shade into the new brown to get the branches right. Of course it was only the tiniest bit of new branch that I put all the effort of doing the shading and whatnot into, but it looked good. (maybe that’s another reason for my utter incompetence art-wise, I’m too detail-oriented. No one’ll be able to see it from across the cafeteria.) I’m definitely learning a little bit, no one can deny that…
Well, heck. This paragraph is supposed to be about “Leadership/Participation- describe a time you showed leadership by stepping up to the plate and taking care of business. Helping Others. Building others up with constructive criticism. Keeping the project on track. If you were EVER spoken to about productivity, explain why the choices you made were not the best and what choices/actions would have been better and why.” This one’ll probably be the longest paragraph so far. Lessee… A time I showed leadership… I dunno. I think of myself as a leader, but I’m influential in other ways. Not quite what’s described here, that’s Suri. She’s that sort of person, the ‘Boss’ leader. I’m the sort of leader who’s extraverted and doesn’t like to engage in activities alone. (Even when I’d be, like, twice as productive if I did.) So I’ll suggest to others that they do it too, and they do! (WOW! I’m learning soooo much about myself.) Helping others. Now that’s something I’ve done a lot of. I spent a ton of time mixing different colors of paint for people, or going and getting someone a new brush, or cleaning paint off the walls/floor/tables. I’ve certainly given some constructive criticism. Often helping other people see that their stuff is actually really cool. Well, it says on the thing that I should talk about being talked to about productivity, which has definitely happened, several times. I’ve been almost constantly distracted and distracting to my peers throughout the year in art class. The only class that I’ve had art-wise where I actually got an adequate amount of work done was in the one that was just Ceramics. The only reason I was able to do so well in that one was because I was fairly good at it. So I didn’t subconsciously try to avoid doing work so that people wouldn’t see how much I sucked. I know that no one would actually think less of me for having a lot to learn about painting and stuff, but back in first and second grade those kids would tease me for the least little thing. Once I was drawing some big block letters for a poster or something, and I drew a ‘T’. It looked like this: t
So then one of the kids starts to say that the sides aren’t symmetrical and that one of the little sticky-outy bits is lower than the other. I had gotten used to this kind of thing by then, so I said as little as possible back. If I had said anything it would’ve been turned around and thrown back at me. Well crap… another fall into the psychoanalysis pit. Anyways, I didn’t do that much work, though I should’ve done more, and also there was the hand painting thing, which taught me another important lesson. I would frequently rub paint off brushes and mixing knives and onto the back of my left hand. It got a lot of the paint off the brush/knife so that it was much easier to wash and it looked and felt cool. Lately I’ve been practicing my rationalization skills, deciding how much something helped me, hurt me, and made me happy. When Deb first saw me with paint on my hand she told me to wash it off. I didn’t think about what reasons Deb might have for telling me this. I just did it, because I am a nice person, and will do what a teacher who I respect and like expressly orders me to. While doing so, I rationalized about whether or not it was a good idea to paint my hand. I decided that it helped me and made me happy more than it hurt me. So I kept doing it. Several times Deb saw me with paint on my hand and told me to wash it off. One of those times was during this quarter’s Art-a-thon. The Art-a-thon is an event that happens near the end of each quarter where Deb opens the school on saturday to 7/8s who want to work on stuff that they haven’t finished. I had just finished mixing a brown for the tree and had wiped off the knife on the back of my hand. I walked into the cafeteria and Deb noticed my hand and told me to wash it off. She was getting a bit exasperated now since this was the fifth or sixth time she had told me to do so in the past few months. I groaned and complained and prolonged it more than usual, but went and washed it off anyways. That day I had around three hours to work and got almost nothing done. It was the day after we got home from camp so I was pretty wound up and distracted everyone with the little entertaining wade antics that form my personality on overdrive. Later I found out that Deb was seriously irritated, but since she’s a nice awesome person all she did was chide me and try to herd me back towards work. I haven’t painted my hand purposely since then because I learned something from that. When rationalizing can’t only think about how it helps, harms, and makes me happy. I have to think: does this help those around me? Does this hurt them? Does this make them happy? Even if painting my hand didn’t seem to hurt me more than it helped me and made me happy I should’ve stopped simply because Deb wanted me too, and I respect and trust Deb.
Welp, here we are on the fourth page of this thing. I’ll try to keep this last paragraph as brief as possible, and not dive too deep into the psychoanalysis pit. In this one I’m supposed to convince Deb that I’ve learned something from this class. I know I’ve learned something from this class. I’ve probably learned more from this class than I have from any other art class. The main thing that I’ve learned from this year of art classes is how to be in art classes.
Coming into this year I thought that art was a class where you made cool stuff, and talked to people. Because that’s what I had done in art before. But art classes are so much more than that. You actually have to learn stuff, and make certain things. Honestly this little essay thing is kinda sad. I only learned how to take a real art class once it was too late to enjoy the utterly incredible classes that I’ve taken this year.
Since this is my last one of these weird little art essay things I want to make it my best. This quarter was the most daunting for me. Paint is without a doubt the hardest artistic medium for me to work with. ‘Hate’ would be a bit strong of a word to use about my feelings toward painting, but ‘dislike’ would be too soft. I think one of the reasons that I don’t like painting that much is that I never really learned how to do it that well. The art teachers at Open kept leaving. One year we just had, like, three long-term subs. Sarah Winter was one of the best teachers. She stayed for around three years before leaving to go teach art in a high school, but didn’t really teach kids many specific principles and stuff ‘til they got older. Which is understandable, ‘cause before she taught at Open she had taught high-schoolers. So I never really learned any actual techniques or principles that would help in painting. I think that because of this I sort of became ‘afraid’ to paint stuff. Deb expects people to actually, have received an art education before coming to her class. Which is Totally reasonable and sensical. I never really got that, to me, art had always been a class for randomized creativity and socialization. Not actual work and learning. I know that others actually, learned things in art class, so I can’t just be absolved of all blame for not doing well enough simply because my teachers were wonky when I was a child. Some of it is obviously my fault too.. Maybe I just didn’t ask the right questions or something. Well crap, it appears that I’ve let this sink down into an endless pit of psychoanalysis. (Believe me. I could do this for days.) Anyways, I was pretty pessimistic about this project, and thought that I would do about as well as I did. The prospect of making a huge mural in the cafeteria wasn’t exactly enjoyable for me. (Giddly God! That was a huge paragraph!)
In this new paragraph I’m supposed to write about what I contributed to the mural. The theme of the entire thing was ‘The Four Seasons’ which seems pretty tacky in writing. Though at the time I was just relieved that the theme wasn’t something about food. I found the idea of giant food decorating the walls of the lunchroom weirdly unappetizing. I was in the Fall group. We chose the section of wall surrounding the counter because it was the smallest, you can tell a lot about the sort of people we were just from that decision. (I don’t know about three-day Fall, but two-day fall weren’t exactly exemplary art students. [especially me]) I spent most of my time semi-subconsciously trying to avoid doing actual painting. Because (frankly) my painting skills are crap, and I think I subconsciously reasoned that I shouldn’t try to learn how to paint after everyone else had already done so because then they would think I was stupid because my painting skills were so bad. Which was probably a social instinct left over from hanging out with mean kids in first and second grade. (Wow. I’m learning a lot about myself while writing this.) So instead of actually working on the mural I would mix up certain colors for people, and it would take forever because I’m really picky about colors for some reason (probably another subconscious evasion technique) and I never learned any techniques for mixing paints. (Though it’s not that hard at all, just mix the two diddly darn paints.) Or I would get drop cloths, or help clean spilled paint off the floor. Still being helpful while not actually contributing. Also I just didn’t know what to do, all the ideas I had were impossible for me to paint. So I barely actually painted any parts of the mural. All I did was work a fair bit on the leaves, touch up the tree, and paint a few more branches and an entire corner of blue sky. I think one of the reasons I chose to work on the leaves was because they were easy. All I had to do was take a few fall colors and paint a ton of crude squares with a wide brush. Though it was easy I really like the way it turned out. The texture shown is really clear, sort of soft, but still with swooping angles that made distinct shapes. I love how well Felicity blended the styles of the Spring tree and the Fall tree. Changing their almost fuzzy indistinct leaves into our lined semi-geometric ones. The hardest bit was definitely the branches, the brown I made was a different color than the one originally used on the tree, so I had to blend and shade into the new brown to get the branches right. Of course it was only the tiniest bit of new branch that I put all the effort of doing the shading and whatnot into, but it looked good. (maybe that’s another reason for my utter incompetence art-wise, I’m too detail-oriented. No one’ll be able to see it from across the cafeteria.) I’m definitely learning a little bit, no one can deny that…
Well, heck. This paragraph is supposed to be about “Leadership/Participation- describe a time you showed leadership by stepping up to the plate and taking care of business. Helping Others. Building others up with constructive criticism. Keeping the project on track. If you were EVER spoken to about productivity, explain why the choices you made were not the best and what choices/actions would have been better and why.” This one’ll probably be the longest paragraph so far. Lessee… A time I showed leadership… I dunno. I think of myself as a leader, but I’m influential in other ways. Not quite what’s described here, that’s Suri. She’s that sort of person, the ‘Boss’ leader. I’m the sort of leader who’s extraverted and doesn’t like to engage in activities alone. (Even when I’d be, like, twice as productive if I did.) So I’ll suggest to others that they do it too, and they do! (WOW! I’m learning soooo much about myself.) Helping others. Now that’s something I’ve done a lot of. I spent a ton of time mixing different colors of paint for people, or going and getting someone a new brush, or cleaning paint off the walls/floor/tables. I’ve certainly given some constructive criticism. Often helping other people see that their stuff is actually really cool. Well, it says on the thing that I should talk about being talked to about productivity, which has definitely happened, several times. I’ve been almost constantly distracted and distracting to my peers throughout the year in art class. The only class that I’ve had art-wise where I actually got an adequate amount of work done was in the one that was just Ceramics. The only reason I was able to do so well in that one was because I was fairly good at it. So I didn’t subconsciously try to avoid doing work so that people wouldn’t see how much I sucked. I know that no one would actually think less of me for having a lot to learn about painting and stuff, but back in first and second grade those kids would tease me for the least little thing. Once I was drawing some big block letters for a poster or something, and I drew a ‘T’. It looked like this: t
So then one of the kids starts to say that the sides aren’t symmetrical and that one of the little sticky-outy bits is lower than the other. I had gotten used to this kind of thing by then, so I said as little as possible back. If I had said anything it would’ve been turned around and thrown back at me. Well crap… another fall into the psychoanalysis pit. Anyways, I didn’t do that much work, though I should’ve done more, and also there was the hand painting thing, which taught me another important lesson. I would frequently rub paint off brushes and mixing knives and onto the back of my left hand. It got a lot of the paint off the brush/knife so that it was much easier to wash and it looked and felt cool. Lately I’ve been practicing my rationalization skills, deciding how much something helped me, hurt me, and made me happy. When Deb first saw me with paint on my hand she told me to wash it off. I didn’t think about what reasons Deb might have for telling me this. I just did it, because I am a nice person, and will do what a teacher who I respect and like expressly orders me to. While doing so, I rationalized about whether or not it was a good idea to paint my hand. I decided that it helped me and made me happy more than it hurt me. So I kept doing it. Several times Deb saw me with paint on my hand and told me to wash it off. One of those times was during this quarter’s Art-a-thon. The Art-a-thon is an event that happens near the end of each quarter where Deb opens the school on saturday to 7/8s who want to work on stuff that they haven’t finished. I had just finished mixing a brown for the tree and had wiped off the knife on the back of my hand. I walked into the cafeteria and Deb noticed my hand and told me to wash it off. She was getting a bit exasperated now since this was the fifth or sixth time she had told me to do so in the past few months. I groaned and complained and prolonged it more than usual, but went and washed it off anyways. That day I had around three hours to work and got almost nothing done. It was the day after we got home from camp so I was pretty wound up and distracted everyone with the little entertaining wade antics that form my personality on overdrive. Later I found out that Deb was seriously irritated, but since she’s a nice awesome person all she did was chide me and try to herd me back towards work. I haven’t painted my hand purposely since then because I learned something from that. When rationalizing can’t only think about how it helps, harms, and makes me happy. I have to think: does this help those around me? Does this hurt them? Does this make them happy? Even if painting my hand didn’t seem to hurt me more than it helped me and made me happy I should’ve stopped simply because Deb wanted me too, and I respect and trust Deb.
Welp, here we are on the fourth page of this thing. I’ll try to keep this last paragraph as brief as possible, and not dive too deep into the psychoanalysis pit. In this one I’m supposed to convince Deb that I’ve learned something from this class. I know I’ve learned something from this class. I’ve probably learned more from this class than I have from any other art class. The main thing that I’ve learned from this year of art classes is how to be in art classes.
Coming into this year I thought that art was a class where you made cool stuff, and talked to people. Because that’s what I had done in art before. But art classes are so much more than that. You actually have to learn stuff, and make certain things. Honestly this little essay thing is kinda sad. I only learned how to take a real art class once it was too late to enjoy the utterly incredible classes that I’ve taken this year.
Winter
Maggie W
This quarter in our 7th and 8th grade art elective, we set out to paint a huge mural on the walls of our school cafeteria. When I heard about this project, I was intimidated but very excited. I have worked on one mural in the past, but that was on a very different scale and using very different techniques. The cafeteria mural would be much larger and much more complex, and it evolved as we added different elements and each person brought their own style. The theme chosen for the mural was Four Seasons, which I think worked very well because we were split up into four groups, each assigned a certain area of the cafeteria and a season. It allowed the subject matter of our painting to vary from season to season, but still provided unity. Because I had art class five days a week, I was designated as a “team lead” and put in charge of Winter along with Elliot R-B. One part of the mural which was painted almost entirely by me was the snow banks around the snowman. The area was originally a flat blue field of snow, but we kept getting comments that the snow was too blue and looked like water. The idea of using a sponge to get a snow-like texture had been floated by several group members, so I tried applying a glaze of watered-down white paint with a sponge. It worked very well. I ended up creating the shapes of snowy hills, trying to make them get smaller and flatter in the distance. In the entire mural, this is one of the areas with the most perspective and sense of space. Another project I am going into with our last few days of class is to paint constellations in the sky below and around the moon phases towards the end of the winter section. Elliot, my co-team lead, and I are both interested in astronomy, and we agreed to do this in the early planning stages, although we have only just started. We chose some of our favorite constellations, picking ones visible in the Northern Hemisphere in wintertime like Orion, Draco, Columba, and Andromeda, and have begun to paint them with silvery paint. This is the section of the mural that is most personal to me because of my love of mythology and the stars. Being a team lead meant I could make major decisions about the overall look of our section of the mural, but it also meant that I wasn’t as involved with the actual painting of it. Instead I helped assign various sections of the mural to students, and usually spent the first several minutes of class making sure everyone had something to do. I tried to check in with others at the beginning of class as well as during painting time, to ensure they were on track and offer suggestions, as well as remind them to be efficient with time. There was a class during the GLSEN Day of Silence which was particularly challenging. Four out of five members of our Monday/Wednesday/Friday group, including myself, weren’t talking that day as part of the protest. I had anticipated that communicating was going to be hard, so before class I wrote out a list of each group member and suggestions of what to work on. When I came to class and showed it to them, it went very smoothly and we all ended up making progress. I’m proud of having the foresight to plan ahead and navigate around the potential problem. The cafeteria mural pushed me out of my comfort zone in a lot of good ways. In my personal artwork I spend a lot of time making things look as nice as I can. With a big project like the mural, I could decide things like, “there should be a tree right there,” and assign a person to work on it, but I had little control over how it ended up looking. This could be frustrating to me at times, but in the end it was what made the mural so amazing, with so many different styles and techniques. Each artist contributed their own unique way of doing things, and it all fits together to make our entire cafeteria a beautiful piece of art. Nora G
This art quarter we focused on painting a mural of the four seasons in the cafeteria. We split up into groups by seasons and began by sketching the basics of what our grouped season was going to look like. I was in the season Winter. From the beginning, we worked on sketching out the basics of what the mural would look like and I started out by painting the icicles, and someone from the 3 day art class finished them. I used the value of shadowing in painting the icicles in the beginning. I made sure that the colors, blue, white, and a light blue that I mixed, would blend into each other, so it wouldn’t seem as if there were two lines on the icicles to have the effect of realism. I also worked on the big pine tree next to the one that Elliot was painting. I made sure that the texture of the tree looked realistic enough to show shadowing and create the illusion of a real tree on the wall, rather than just a 2D cartoon tree. With Maggie Watson, I added on snow on top of the tree, and used a ‘stubble-ing’ technique and went lighter as the tree’s value went darker (the shadows of the tree) so the texture of the snow would look realistic and not as if white was painted on top of green. I took leadership with the top of the windows project that would show Fall transitioning to Winter. Unfortunately, I was sick several times during the month when we were planning it, causing us to run out of time. I worked with one of the leaders of Winter and one of the leaders of Fall. I originally planned to have a stained glass snowflake with winter colors that suited the colors that we were painting on our portion of the mural. I worked and communicated with a head leader of Winter, Maggie W, who helped a lot in this leadership project. I had an idea with the snowflake project to have something holographic such as shards of a CD to illustrate and create the illusion of falling particles of ice. I regret that I didn’t have enough time to create that effect on the mural. Overall, I learned a lot about mural painting, design, and value and more importantly, collaborating with other artists. I learned that you have to communicate with people and plan ahead, such as I found with the snowflake project. I found several techniques to use in my own paintings from this class that helped me. I enjoyed experimenting with values of color and texture to make paintings look realistic and three dimensional. I learned a lot about perspective and how to perceive details and reproduce them on a wall. This mural class inspired me to create and design my own mural on the walls of my bedroom which I will complete this summer. Noa G
In art this quarter we painted a mural in the cafeteria. We decided to do the four seasons and seperated into groups based on the seasons. After that every group got to paint a part of the wall for their season. Fall, winter, spring and summer. Everyone had to do something to help their group. We also transformed one season into another in creative ways. The parameters of this project were that we had to clean up the area we were working in, if paint spilled then you cleaned it up, and that everything went back were it was when we were done. Also clean the brushes, cover paint so it doesn’t dry, and if you don’t want someone else to use it put it on the shelf. My thought and feelings about going into it were that I was excited about doing this project and seeing how it went. The parts of the mural I worked on most is the birch forest which is where the moose is and the snow on the ground near the cabin.. The birch forest is right next to fall the moose is behind the pole but in front of the other trees. If you walk in through the double doors keeping going until there is a pole on your right and turn. If you walk through the single door across from the auditorium then turn right and walk until you see the pole on you left. The snow on the ground is dark blue and has footprints in approaching a cabin and pine trees. If you go through the double doors turn right and look to your right. We made the birch trees because it was a transition from fall to winter and the snow on the ground because it’s winter and a person was walking through the snow to get to the cabin there. For the birch forest we used smaller brushes because the texture was going to seem real. The tools we used for the snow were the bit ones so we could cover more area in the One of the times where I was a leader was when we were working on the birch forest. I helped Allison work on the trees because there was a lot to be done in a short amount of time that we had left. Both of us were very focused because of the task we were doing and the time. The mural is looking really good considering how much time we had. Everyone in their season was really focused on getting it done but also talked and had fun while doing it. I learned that working on a mural with other people will make it go faster so that you can get more done in different areas then you can if there was only one person working on it. I learned that when there is more than one person working in a specific area of a mural it will go a lot faster as long as you communicate with each other. Over all the mural was a lot of work but really fun and I learned a lot. |
Elliot
For the fourth quarter art class we decided to paint the cafeteria. The entire cafeteria, in all its dirty, off-white glory, needed a change. Now that I think about it, painting a huge mural in the cafeteria with two classes over one quarter was not at all a good idea. But somehow we pulled it off. Basically we started off with the plan to somehow paint a whole room with a themed mural in one quarter and use two art classes-worth of kids (about 50) to get the job done. Since we had so many kids we organize ourselves into eight groups, four Monday/Wednesday/Friday groups and four Tuesday/Thursday groups. I had art all five days with seven other people. The eight of us were the team leads and we were more-or-less responsible for everyone else. The first thing we did was attempt to pick a general theme. That didn't go so well… After looking through our lists of ideas, Deb picked a theme, the four seasons. Then the groups each picked a section of wall and a season. My group picked winter and a strip of wall with a corner and two windows. Then we made a list of elements we wanted in our space. We decided that winter would be portrayed as night and summer as day with spring and fall being sunrise and sunset respectively. One thing I was really excited about was putting in the moon phases and some winter constellations. For most of the quarter I worked on painting moons and the sky around them in the corner. The moons were actually a lot harder than I thought they would be, making them all relatively the same height and shape was a challenge. The easy (and slightly tedious part) was painting the sky around the moons. It started with a black at the top and faded into a lighter blue near the horizon. That scene was finished with some storm clouds because spring started with a snow storm and we wanted the seasons to blend together. This was really the thing I was most excited about so after I finished I mostly did whatever needed to be done. I ended up spending a lot of time painting the snow around the moose painting which was actually pretty fun. I also worked a lot on the tree that was wedged in the oddly-shaped corner near the moons. It had been painted to look like snow was on the branches but it kinda looked liked a striped easter egg so I tried to make it more tree-like. This was probably the hardest thing for multiple reasons, one being that we could not match the original paint color. Since we had one quarter to work on this project time was of the essence and staying on task was important. If you were not being productive in any way there was a 94% chance you would be yelled at by Deb or a team lead. I think that as a whole we did a good job staying on task. Cleaning up was another story, no one likes cleaning up and because we were working a cafeteria which got used every day we had to make sure everything was put away. It was really hard because you couldn't really set up anything. Everything had to be spotless by then end of class and no one wanted to do that. Also all the brushes had to be washed and all the paint put away. Sometimes not all the paint would be washed out of a brush and then you might end up with an orange moon (true story). In conclusion this was an awesome project and I am really proud that we did it. The cafeteria is no longer light beige and stained with food from 2010. The mural was a big thing we did and I learned a lot about teamwork and paint. We had an incident involving “death paint” aka lacquer and we got to learn about its actual use (don’t paint your house with furniture finish) which was really cool. All in all this was a blast and I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Maddy H
For art this quarter, we painted a mural in the cafeteria. We had 9 weeks to get it done, we had to choose a theme, and we had to divide into groups of 5. The theme chosen was 4 seasons, and the groups were assigned to a season each. My group got winter. At the beginning I was really excited, but also nervous for a number of reasons (we weren’t going to get it done, I doubted my painting skills, etc…), but I was determined to try. At first I worked on the snowman with Zoë Simmons, located in between the two last windows in the cafeteria, and specifically the nose, and the details. That project kind of fell off the radar when I started to work on the snow around it, and Zoë got distracted from it. Then I worked on the snow banks around the snowman, but then someone else in my group took charge of that. After that I kind of sat around for one or two classes, but then I worked on the footprints by the door at the back of the room. I started by filling them in with a light blue, and then went around them with the dark blue to make them look 3D and indented. I proceeded to go around them with a darker blue for the snow on the hill, and then they were done (in around a week). After that I painted the owl in the birch trees above the moose. I had really wanted to paint a penguin or some kind of animal, but they weren’t from Michigan, so I could not. I ended up painting the owl because the group decided it was a good idea, and I volunteered. I finished my painting with finishing up the sky that connected fall to winter with a light purple color. I feel as if the only real time I showed leadership was at cleaning time, because I washed all of the brushes most of the time. I feel like toward the beginning I wasn’t as confident as now, so I didn’t really exhibit my leadership skills, and then I put doubt in the heads of my group about how well I could lead things, so I didn’t get to. I did, however, keep the mural on track by doing stuff like painting sky, snow, and things with less detail. The one time the class was spoken to about productivity was when the art paper was due. I hadn’t turned it in, and so I didn’t get to work on the mural. I probably could have not slacked off as much and remembered to do it over the weekend, because then it would have been turned in on time. I learned a few things in this process. One, I am currently more confident than I was at the beginning. Two, I learned that blending things with your hands works just as well as working with a brush. Three, how to blend brown and different colors, and four, how to work as a team on a project. Allison
For this quarter I was in two day art. What we did was amazing , we painted the cafeteria. Our theme was seasons and the part that I helped with was winter. Going into it I was disappointed that we did seasons but now I’m really happy we did it. My contribution was a lot, but the the thing I worked on the most was definitely the birch forest or the snowman. I made the birch forest because everyone else had their own activity and I wanted to have my own project. I really tried to make it as realistic as possible, the form didn't always work but I know that over all, the texture and shape was about right. My leadership moment was with the birch forest. I didn’t know how I was going to complete it so I grabbed Noa Gone and we got to work. Also Multiple times I took the job of a leader when people spilled paint in the hallway. Even though it wasn't my mess I stepped up to the plate and got a sponge. In conclusion I’m really happy about this mural, It turned out really pretty, and I am very proud of what I accomplished. Zoe
This quarter we worked on the cafeteria and we painted a mural. The murals theme was the four seasons. At first I was nervous because the whole school would see it but I then realized how efficient we were. I mostly worked on three main parts. The snow man, the pine tree, and the football field. Although I was in the winter group Deb told me to work on the football field. Both the snowman and the pine tree are in winter and the football field in fall. The snowman is, well, a snowman and it’s scarf is turning into snow at the end. The pine tree is over by the doors and I started it and then Elliot kinda took it over. I started on the football field later in the process and it was fun and new. I worked with perspective and learned how to make straight lines and how to use negative space. We also played with shape by kinda morphing the volcano into a football field. At the beginning I was kinda new to this whole mural business so I mostly followed Maggie and Elliot’s lead but with the football field I feel I took on responsibility for that project and I’m very proud of the progress I have made. It was a little hard with the pine tree because I got frustrated so I put it off. All in all I really enjoyed the class and had fun broadening my art horizon and learning more about people I didn’t know. Thank you Deb for being a wonderful teacher and really being patient with me. |
Fiona
This mural project was really interesting! Painting the cafeteria was an amazing idea, especially for the 8th graders who want to leave their mark on the school. I’m really glad we got to do this project, and I think it will be a great addition to the school.
My main parts in the mural were the icicles, small pine trees and log cabin in the winter section. I used the same tactic painting the pine trees and icicles, starting with the base color, then a lighter highlighted part, then an even lighter highlight over that. I liked how that turned out, and now I know how it will look for future projects. I didn’t really work on much else though, and I wish I could have gotten more done. I think the hardest part was the lack of available paint. The table was covered in specific shades that no one could use anymore and overall a mess. I remember trying and failing to mix even a simple dark brown because I couldn’t find any black.
The only time I might be able to say I used leadership was with the icicles, which I kind of took over since I didn’t like how the Tuesday- Thursday class was handling it. However, I can’t really say that showed leadership, since I kind of regret being unable to talk to the other class and come to an agreement. Maggie did that for me. I honestly think most of the work I did on the mural was independent. I just asked for permission and did my own thing, which is how I prefer to work.
I do think I learned a lot about paint from this mural. Especially how different types of paintbrushes work and how paint works with the wall. Seeing everyone’s different styles combine was interesting, to say the least. Overall I really liked this project and I’m very glad I got to be in the class that did this.
This mural project was really interesting! Painting the cafeteria was an amazing idea, especially for the 8th graders who want to leave their mark on the school. I’m really glad we got to do this project, and I think it will be a great addition to the school.
My main parts in the mural were the icicles, small pine trees and log cabin in the winter section. I used the same tactic painting the pine trees and icicles, starting with the base color, then a lighter highlighted part, then an even lighter highlight over that. I liked how that turned out, and now I know how it will look for future projects. I didn’t really work on much else though, and I wish I could have gotten more done. I think the hardest part was the lack of available paint. The table was covered in specific shades that no one could use anymore and overall a mess. I remember trying and failing to mix even a simple dark brown because I couldn’t find any black.
The only time I might be able to say I used leadership was with the icicles, which I kind of took over since I didn’t like how the Tuesday- Thursday class was handling it. However, I can’t really say that showed leadership, since I kind of regret being unable to talk to the other class and come to an agreement. Maggie did that for me. I honestly think most of the work I did on the mural was independent. I just asked for permission and did my own thing, which is how I prefer to work.
I do think I learned a lot about paint from this mural. Especially how different types of paintbrushes work and how paint works with the wall. Seeing everyone’s different styles combine was interesting, to say the least. Overall I really liked this project and I’m very glad I got to be in the class that did this.