A Passion for Creativity

Art Festival Mural Project

The beginning of May is near and I’m thinking back over the past busy month. This mural stood out as a fun creative idea that needs mentioning. Many participants, ranging from a 3 year-old, to someone in her 80’s, completed this mural. The occasion was the South Fork School First Arts Festival held on a sunny Saturday at the end of March.

My idea was to put together an art experience with a large scale work that people could plunge into and… one that wouldn’t be intimidating.  On matboard I loosely sketched a 5′ x 36″ fish drawing, which I then cut up into 6″ squares, so 60 squares in all. Most of the square images consisted of parts of the bigger image so there was an abstract quality to them. There was a small photo showing the complete image for initial reference, but the idea was that the approach would be free form. Each person that walked into the workshop completed a square, in whatever manner they wanted, using colored pencils and/or markers. Some of the kids did a couple of squares. The finished squares were then mounted on two foamcore panels recreating the original composition, and sprayed with a fixative to be hung in the school community room. A separate chart linked names to the individual images.

If this had been a workshop completed over several days, or with a specific group, they would have designed their own mural initially and the materials would have been expanded. I have seen something similar done with ceramic tile for instance. However, this particular approach worked well for a situation where people wandered in and out of the workshop throughout the 5-6 hours of the festival.

I think they did a terrific job!