ARTSCO Mural Painting

On September 21st the ARTSCO group met for our first mural painting. We started working at around 10 in the morning, ending at 12-1 in the afternoon. There were a fair number of ARTSCO members there, and we split into two groups, one working on finishing the round square mural, whilst the other started the new ARTSCO mural.

We decided to do a rhino on the panel beside the elephant we had done at the PTO picnic, using the same technique. This technique, an idea of Mr Nicholas, involved printing a huge picture of a rhino out on different sheets of paper. We started out by taping the sheets together in order, labelling them and laying them out to make the picture. This took quite a while, but we worked well together as a team and managed to finish quite quickly considering. Once this was finished we got the glue and other materials from the art room and carried everything over to our panel (which was in the upper car park). The glue was a little smelly, which was a problem at first. However, we all got used to the smell as time went by, and were able to work effectively (with only a few complaints here and there!).
We started work by prepping the surface of the panel - we painted it with glue to prepare for the pieces of paper that would be stuck down. We decided to stick on two sheets of paper at a time, working from the bottom up, so that it was more easy to do efficiently. At first it was extremely challenging to get the paper on flat, and our whole bottom row had air bubbles and creases within the paper. It didn't look that great up close, but once you stepped back the picture began to come together. We also improved a lot as time went by, and our top row was a great deal neater. The team worked very well, some prepped whilst others pasted the sheets down and painted over the pieces that had already been glued on. There was a point at which I was worried that we wouldn't finish in time, but luckily enough we managed to get the whole thing down in time. There were a few bits of the rhino that were a little off, but Mr Nicholas ensured us that he would be able to paint over it and correct the issues.

The ARTSCO group helped to clean up well and I feel that we worked extremely well as a whole throughout the day. Everyone was actively involved in the painting of the mural, and sticking down sheets (as well as taping them together, etc) was done with a clear embracing of teamwork and cooperation. I hope that I did a good job taking on a leadership role during this process, and that everyone enjoyed it. I hope that we can do more activities like this in the future, though an issue will always be getting enough people to sign up to come!