Art with Mrs Baker: MURALS!

Completed Keith Haring-inspired mural

Completed Tree of Learning mural

Completed Kandinsky-inspired mural

These are the murals from my STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Media) group, composed of students from grades 4 & 5. I'm really thrilled with the final products which brighten the hallways of our fabulous school. Well done to the great group of kids who worked so hard on them!

Project Background:

Once a fortnight for 2 school terms (I think it worked out as 8 sessions in total, plus a few extra finishing-off sessions squeezed in), students from Grades 3-6 at my school are involved in a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Media) elective. Each teacher from these year levels, runs an elective based on a personal passion. I chose to focus on the Arts (surprise!) and set up a mural painting group.

Lesson Materials:

Large thin timber boards
Chromacryl acrylic paints in a range of colours
Paintbrushes of all sizes
Water
Paint and water pots
Plastic drop sheets
Gloss varnish to coat the murals when completed

Sessions:

Session 1: Looking at photographs of murals, and learning what a mural is; touring the school to find appropriate available spaces for murals; beginning their designs and proposals.

Session 2: Students spent this session focusing on completing their designs and proposals. Students were asked to remember that as a primary school, we wanted bright, happy, child-friendly murals, that appealed to all ages and genders, would remain 'timeless', and were simple enough in shape and design, so that students could draw and paint them successfully. Their proposal had to describe the design, state what message or feeling it communicated to the public who would walk past the mural, where they would like the mural to be located, and why their mural should be selected to be created. At the end of the session, students submitted their team proposals and designs to our school principal, who chose the 3 winning murals to be created based on those she felt best represented our school (and one of the mural designs was to have 2 versions created, due to the number of students in the group).

Session 3: Students drew their designs. We watched time-lapse videos of artists on Youtube, drawing their designs.

Session 4: We watched more Youtube time-lapse videos of artists painting murals, and discussed the fact that the painting was done in stages and layers. We watched how the largest blocks of colour were done first, and how final intricate details were not done until multiple layers had been built up. This was beneficial for students to see, as of course, they were excited and impatient to jump straight in and paint it all in 1 go!

Sessions 5 & 6: Painting the base layers.

Sessions 7 & 8: Painting the 2nd layers.

Sessions 9 & 10: Painting the final layers and detail.

Future Session: Final touches, tidying up and gloss varnish when dry.

The Murals in progress...