The color white was here and it allowed for all the tones to follow. I created color charts for each picture frame. I wanted them to understand what colors they needed for their sections and I wanted them to depend on themselves for creating colors. I always told them that I’m not responsible for the micro-management of their projects. That was to be their land of rule. I prescribed everyone into 4-6 groups to tackle the wall. I had people working on the sky scene, tree-horizon line, the green banner and the picture frames.

I had to make sure that my students were being very definitive in their fill-ins and outlines. I did not want the mural to be good from far but far from being clean. I wanted all colors to meet where they were supposed to; and I wanted the colors to be solid… not porous from the cinder block surface.

I also wanted them to be in total communication with each other…

And as the day grew darker I noticed that everyone was still here. They are Diehards!

you can see the tree line coming into effect and everybody is noticing their small sketches coming into grand reality. I taught them in the beginning that we were not going to do gradients and fades. I thought this would be too challenging to some and it would leave the mural to unexpected risks. So my peoples in the red group tried to sneak some fades into the painting… sorry guys… gotta stick to the program.

the first night of real painting was an astounding one. I can’t believe we did this all in one night. At this point I knew we were golden to finish in time. From here on out… it was going to be all about tightening the painting over and over again.

Filed under: Community Art- Eugene Or by admin Date 26 October, 2008