School Mural Project: The Next Panel!

We're on the third panel (out of 5) of the mural for the science building at my kids' school.

The first two panels are up, and they look just fantastic. And, they have withstood some serious amounts of rain here in Northern California.

Here you can see where the mural is being installed - there will be 5 panels altogether. Note also the variety of sports equipment that has been launched onto the roof of the science building....

And, here's a little closer view. We've gone from DNA to cell stomata, and cell stomata to oak leaves.

So, continuing our "powers of ten" concept, the next panel goes from oak leaves, on the inner panel, to oak trees, on the outer frame.

Here it is sketched out. The trick is to get the oak trees to "read" like oaks, which have this unique shape - especially since the mural is so bright, almost Matisse-like in character.

And here is the whole panel, sketched out. I used chalk to sketcha nd suggest the colors, and then a big fat Sharpie to put in the lines so it's like a giant coloring book.

Next up, kids with paintbrushes!! Wish our science teacher luck.

Super Cool SF Giants Scooter Rack Project.

Particularly if you are an SF Giants fan. This is my son's 1st-grade class' contribution to our school auction.

Someone came up with a really cool idea to make a customized scooter/bike rack, and to make the top of it look like the scoreboard at AT&T Park -- as an item to auction off for our school.

Have you ever really looked at the scoreboard at AT&T Park? It's got a whole lotta details. So I simplified it down a ways - and added in "ads" for our kids' school. And of course a big ol' World Series graphic on the jumbo-tron. I put an American flag where there's usually a beer ad.

Anyway, here's how the top of it looks:

The kids each drew a "fan," many of whom have Panda hats and Beards as well as cotton candy - and a whole lot of them are catching fly balls, which I take as a good omen for the Giants' batting in the coming season - since these fans are so far out in the outfield. I gave them each an index card to draw on so they would be a standard size.

I used the age-old method of putting pencil rubbing on the backs of the drawings/artwork and then tracing over it to "transfer" the kids' drawings, and the SF logo and the clock and the AT&T Park lettering, onto the wood - which was primed white with Kilz. The colors are added using acrylic paint.

Here's how it looks attached to the fabulous stand:

Let there be massive crazed bidding for this, and may all school auctions out there raise absolute gobs and piles of money for your schools as well.

School Mural: The Painting Has Begun!

Oh boy, we're to the good part.

4th graders with paint brushes have begun to apply fabulous colors to our mural. So far they've gotten through most of the panel with the DNA molecules and leaf cell stomata.

I just love the colors of this mural paint!

Our science teacher, Mr. Winter, put dots of suggested colors in each area on each square. Then the kids went for it. You can see examples of the color dots on the two panels of DNA that aren't painted yet.

Then, the whole thing gets put together like a big puzzle.

Now we're waiting on some red paint so the kids can paint in the centers of the DNA -

I'd better get going on the next panel! It's going to have the cell stomata in the middle, and oak leaves around the outside.... Hooray!

School Mural Project: Plywood Squares Aplenty

Our mural for the science lab at my kids' elementary school is taking form! As I mentioned before, besides making something cool to look at, we also want to:

- Involve as many kids as possible in painting the mural

- Break it down into manageable pieces that can be easily handled

- Use paints that will last and varnish the heck out of it

- Show tons of science concepts and terms

The sketch we're working from looks like this:

It's a variation on the "powers of ten" concept. We work our way from DNA on the left to space on the right. It will be five panels, of 4 by 8 feet each. Each block is a 1-foot square.

Another parent took on the big job of cutting plywood squares (it's 1-inch thick plywood) and priming them, then I rolled them home in our red wagon. Each one of these will make up one square of the grid. This way, kids can take them and paint them without having to crawl over one another - and they can feel ownership of their square. It's part mural, part mosaic.

I've got the squares for the first panel laid out, ready for the line art of DNA/cell stomata (I'm also going to number/letter them all so we know where they go). They look like this:

Once I've got the line art and numbering on there, we'll enlist some students to put little dots of paint in the various spaces to show what should be painted what color. Then the kids can have at it!

I'm tempted to expand the space dedicated to the DNA to 4 squares tall rather than just the two in the sketch - I think it would look better.

We're using mural paint for this rather than exterior paint - we considered recycling house paint but it just wasn't going to look as vibrant. And since I walk through the Mission in SF all the time, I'm very biased toward vibrant! We've been referring to this cool site about the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. They even talk about what paints and varnishes they use. And, there's tons of inspiration there.

So, time to get out the pencil and Sharpie I think... and draw some DNA!