Hanna's Grade 11 Art Blog: Creating the Japan Mural

After many days of brainstorming and designing the 'ideal' mural, our class finally came up with a final copy. I don't actually have a picture of the final copy, because we kind of just went off a variety of peoples ideas.

A few days ago we started sketching out the mural. Different people sketched out different parts of the mural so our side has a great level of diversity, in drawing techniques and shapes chosen to represent certain objects. It was nice to see the classes ideas all come together to create the mural.

The final design defiantly portrays how much time and work we had put into the mural. After the drawing was all done, we started painting it, and we knew we had to work fast because of how close the end of the semester is! (only 3 days away) We try to have as many people working on the mural at a time as we can because we know we are pressed for time. But on the other hand, we also do not want the mural to have too many people painting it at a time or it will start to look sloppy and crowded. Unfortunately, this means that we can only have about 3-4 people working on it per day, which means some students don't get the chance to work on it at all. Luckily, the students that don't get to participate in the actual drawing or painting of the mural get to design and paint there own that will be sent back to Japan!

I was not there on the day that the students in my class first started painting the mural, so when I came back some progress had already been made! And I had some knowledge about what it was like to work with the paints that Japan sent us.

We are only aloud to use the paints that Japan sent us because Japan has done this before, and they know what paints work on the type of material we are working with, and what types will not crack when the mural is folded.

Anyways, the paints are pretty runny, so you do not need a lot to go a long way, which is good because they didn't have to send us as much in the mail. It is also kind of tricky though because most of our class is used to working with acrylic paint, so we generally usually use a lot, it took a bit of getting used to, but I think we have the hang of it now! Also, the paint that they sent us mixes kind of funny, not all of the colors, but when trying to make colors like dark blue, you must mix black, white, blue, and magenta. Luckily one of the students in my class discovered this (Kylie). So we now have an even greater variety of color. Most of the other paints mix fairly normal though.

When painting this mural we decided to first start with the background, which includes trees, mountains, water, and the sky. We have now finished the sky and mountains, and we are working toward completing the water and the trees. I really hope that the paint is easy to go over, and the colors that were previously painted will not seep through the new paint. The students in my class have however been pretty careful to stay within the lines, so we might not have anything to worry about.

As for what has been done so far, Abbi painted the sky, and is currently working on the water. Olivia started the grey mountains, and I finished them, and Kylie is almost done the blue mountains.

This is a pretty neat mural to do, because we are doing a mix of cultures, realism, group of 7 style art, and many more! It is different than anything I have ever been a part of before, and seeing how it is now, I think it will look really good when it is all done! And compliment the Japan side nicely.

Here are a few pictures of the progress made so far.