Almost There!

This Thursday (5/14/09) is our last day of site and none of us can believe it!  We are making preparations to finish the final details and hang our mural on the wall permanently.  We are all very excited about the Mural Dedication Party, which will happen this Sunday, May 17th at 12pm.  Columbus local musicians, The Bush League All Stars will be playing and there will be food and drinks for everyone.  The party is open to the public so come celebrate with us!

SITE

The site that we are putting our mural is on Summit and 16th.   This is a church and it has more advantages than our original site because we have places to store are supply's and wash are brushes so we don't have to take stuff on the with us when we go back to school. It is also on campus so we have places to go out to lunch. There is a learning center which gives us a place to chill and relax and there is also a pool table and TV's. We also have the advantage to work inside when its cold or raining. 

We would like to give a shout out to the people that have helped make this possible: Chris, Catherine, Clarence and anyone else that help us.

Foundation Layer

The Foundation layer is the basic layer of color after the base coat. We put it on the boards that we are putting the mural on. We also put a foundation layer on the flowers that we are putting onto the mural. We all had our fair share of painted the pieces of the mural. We had to paint many layers so that the green base coat wouldn't show through, like there had to be many layers of yellow put on. After we finished doing all of the foundation layer work we had to start painting details.

University Area Enrichment Association

The University Area Enrichment Association is the sponsor for our mural. They work for people living, working, volunteering, and attending school in the neighborhoods around the Ohio State University. They try to improve the quality of the people's lives by focusing on individual and community empowerment. They believe that important issues to the community include housing, economic development, the environment, health, and education. They also positively affect the community through leadership development and support. The Graham School Mural Project would like to thank the University Area Enrichment Association for their support.

craftmanship

Craftsmanship is very important, whether you are working on a personal or public piece. It is used for all types of work from writing to building, and it is an inexcusable element to making things work and such. Our mural needs to be the best we can do. We don’t have very much time but we should still take it slow and make a good product. We have been rushing and our product is a bit sloppy. The craftsmanship hasn’t been the very best so we need to slow down and pay attention to detail. Craftsmanship is essential because it will help decide how well the final piece looks. The effort put into this will be shown by how well the outcome is. We need to watch ourselves and peers and make sure that everyone is taking time and are doing the best they can do. This mural will reflect on us and we want that reflection to be excellent. This is a long and complicated process but the contribution you give to it can either make or break your name. I personally would like this mural to be one that everyone can enjoy, but if it is sloppy it won’t be appreciated. I think that if we all help each other out and just spend a little more time focusing on the project then this will be a great piece of work to remember.

revisions and directions

During the process of making the mural we have made many desicions as far as changing what the final product will look like and what our day is like at the site. One of the revisions we made at site is that we now have a job list. At the begining of each day we list and assign the jobs that need to be done each day. We started doing this because some of us were having trouble finding work to do, now if we need work we look at the list and there is almost always a job to do on it.

We've also made many creative changes to the mural. For instance on one of the 3D panels there was just a plain window, we instead decided to paint it as stained glass. Another thing we did was rework the colors of one of the flowers to make it stand out more. Something else was that in order to fill up space we decided to make more 3D elements (birds, animals, insects) that will be put in an empty space in the mural.


A big revision we did was the decision to make the mural what it looks like now. Because we didnt really have an idea for what the mural should look like Megan and Jodi came up with some ideas and we worked off of those until

we came up with what we have now. None of us were very happy about not really having creative privledges but we had been working for the past weeks to come up with an idea and didnt really have much and we had to get started so it was necesary.

My personal expierence on the mural. By Angela

This mural project has had it's ups and downs. I like to paint so it doesn't really bother me but when all of us have to keep re-painting things because of our original craftsmanship, it makes the day a lot more hard and stressful. I do however feel like this project made me become closer friends with a couple people. At the beginning of the project, I wasn't into the idea as much because I didn't know anyone in the group I was in. Now I enjoy the project a lot more and have a lot more fun.

Cutting 3D Elements

For our mural we decided to encorperate 3D elements so it can pop out and catch peoples attention. We cut four flowers and several small animals. To cut out the 3D elements we used a jigsaw. I was one of the only students who felt comfortable using the jigsaw, so I did most of the cutting. After cutting, we primed, base coated, and detailed the elements.

Priming and basecoating the wood.

The first step in painting the mural is to prep the wood. Since we are using wood and hanging it up on the actual wall of the building we have to make sure it can withhold the weather. We primed the the wood with white primer twice, and then one coat of a medium shade of green paint. This makes the wood completely covered so that when it rains, the wood does not mold.

Subject Matter

We've gotten very far on our mural since we last blogged.
Our group has started painting already, and here's a picture:
The part of the face you see there is actually part of a "nose-and-up" face. This face has different skin colors, to represent diversity, as well as different hair colors. It also has almost all different eye colors.
About the flowers: Our main subject is Community. One flower has a few people protesting/supporting different things, such as equality, peace, and freedom. Another flower has a person riding a bike, suggesting that they are out in the community. That yellow and red circle is a soup kitchen scene, where a server is giving someone some soup inside a church. Finally, the circle at the bottom is someone planting a flower, which means they're making our community look nicer.
How do the face and community flowers tie together? Well, the face is actually going to have these flowers rooting out of her hair, or so we're thinking.

Short North Mural Walk

On January 22nd, we walked through the Short North photographing and discussing the murals we encountered before meeting up with Curtis Goldstein at Cup O' Joe. Some of the murals we looked at were "Trains" by Greg and Jeff Ackers, "Short North Gothic" by Steve Galgas and Mike Altman, and "Mona Lisa" by Brian Clemons (touched up by Curtis Goldstein). We discussed the importance of these murals to the community and how they influence the atmosphere of Columbus' Short North.

Mural Practice

This was some practice for creating an idea for our mural. Tyler, Angela and I created this idea.
The concept for this image is about sharing your thoughts and talents with the world, which is represented with the orange text and swirl.  The world has a tree, which represents nature, and a city, which represents community.  One of the roads leads to nature and one goes to the city. When both meet in the middle of the world, it represents the two coming together.

Mural Practice

This image was part of a visual brainstorming project I created with Charlotte, Sean and Craig. First, we all printed out images that related to the concept of community that we found on the internet and then passed the pictures around the classroom.  Everyone added drawings to the picture print-outs.  After that we split into small groups and made a larger scale of the composition we liked.  This is a picture where kids are holding up signs and are rooted into the ground.  We did not get to finish coloring so the kids look like floating octopi.

The Summit on 16th

This drawing shows the dimensions for our new mural site located at the Summit on 16th, which is a church and a youth center.  It is hand drawn by Chris Gardner.  We have been asked to create our mural on wood and attach it to the wall rather than painting directly on the bricks.  We are going to need a lot of wood for this mural.  If we are going to paint the whole wall, we are going to need enough wood to cover a 188*155 area.  We are also going to need wood for the three dimensional elements we are planning to incorporate into our mural.

Tagged Restroom

At Tuttle Park there is a restroom with a colorful assortment of rectangles painted on it.  This however is mostly covered by tags from graffiti artists.  On the backside is a graffiti tag from an artist named "Kringe" and on the other side there are tags from "Ender" and "Skum".  These names might be familiar to you because they can be found spray painted onto buildings, walls, and just about anything else all over Clintonville and Columbus.  While we looked at this graffiti in Tuttle Park, we had a conversation about how Philadelphia dealt with their graffiti problem.  They had graffiti artists from the community work on murals so there was a lower chance of defacement of the communities walls.  We also talked about our opinions on graffiti: useless vandalism of property or interesting art from the people and the difference between legal and illegal work.  

Mural Idea Drawing

We created this image during a brainstorming activity.  It is a drawing of a circle incorporating the shape of Ohio and the Graham school logo.  It also has a city, a forest and in the middle, a farm. There are two hands holding up Ohio/TGS logo.  If we had the time to finished coloring the hands, they would have been different skin tones to show that different races of people help the community survive.

Mural Practice

This was one of my first ideas for the mural.  In the beginning of Mural Project, we went to the library where we looked through books to help us think of an idea for the future mural.  We had no idea of where it was going to be painted, we hardly knew anything about murals, and we each had to come up with an idea.  My idea was a spherical view of the city with Polaroid pictures in the background of people in the community doing whatever they like to do.

Kringe

On one of our mural walks, we came across an abandoned rest room in Tuttle Park.  While a couple sides of it were colorful, there was one side that had been tagged by graffiti artists.  This graffiti was created by someone known as "Kringe".  It covered a wall about 20 feet long in black and white spray paint.  It covered a plaque that was dedicated to Clyde Tuttle, whom Tuttle Park was also named after.  We talked about how illegal graffiti can be destructive to the community.

Painting Practice

This practice mural was a test run to see how we work together.  Our advisory chose a couple of images that we would like to paint and then narrowed it down by voting on one.  We wanted to practice painting as well as practice working together.  It was a very hard task because it was a small space and none of us have worked together on a mural before.  We were trying to get everyone involved but some people didn't want to do anything.  At the beginning it was a little rough but towards the end mostly everyone was working and having a good time.  The final product is fairly good but the most important thing we were trying to accomplish was learning how to work together.  We had trouble with that but we keep practicing hoping to improve our communication skills so that we have a successful mural from start to finish.  This small practice mural was a preview of what is going to happen when we work the real mural.

Our New Wall

We have decided that this will be the new location of our mural.  It is located at the "Summit on 16th".  This new location benefits us in many ways.  We now have an indoor shelter where we can paint in case of rain and we can also store all of our supplies inside so that we do not have to carry everything back and forth from our location and school.  It will also be a safer place for us to work, it has storage and excellent options for lunch!  We will be painting on sheets of plywood and use concrete screws to attach our mural because the wall is brick.

Mural Practice

This drawing is something that we created as an idea for the mural were planing to paint.  It is a picture of a person leaning over and imagining holding the earth in his finger tips.  There is a city on the right and a tree on the left with a half-human, half-tree in the middle holding up a sign. The concept for this drawing is that the city and nature go together and they are connected by the tree-person in the middle.

Mural Concept by Sean and Charlotte

Charlotte and I worked on this drawing as an idea for our mural.  It has a person looking at the world and considering all the possibilities.  There is a tree in the shape of a fist and planets orbiting Earth.  There is also a city with trees and a sun behind it. 

Tuttle Park Mural

This mural is on the outside of an Ohio Parks and Recreation building in Tuttle Park.  We walked over and looked at this after looking the legal graffiti wall.  In the center of the image is a woman with tree roots instead of legs, which could symbolize mother nature holding the earth.  We decided we liked this symbolization for nature and have incorporated the idea of tree people into our own ideas for our mural.  There is a good balance on either side of this mural with night and day as well as city and forest.  The whole of the image is within the shape of a bird soaring.  This mural incorporates several interesting ideas into one solid piece, something which we hope to do in our own mural.

Tuttle Park Legal Wall

These pictures show legal graffiti wall located in Tuttle park.  On one side, there is  a mural of the Columbus skyline which is visible from the park. There is also two "wild style" tags and one outline.  I'm glad that even though it is a legal wall, most graffiti artists stayed away from the mural and used the other side for more tags. Even though there are a few tags on the mural, they are not going over any detail on the mural and it doesn't make the mural look bad.

The Last Mural Walk

On February 23rd, we took the COTA (Central Ohio Trasit Authority) bus from our school to High Street, where we took another bus after that to Town Street.  After we got off that second bus, we walked to Mount Caramel hospital.  On the wall of the hospital is a mural entitled "Dedication" painted by Eric Grohe.  Grohe painted this mural in a way that makes it appear three dimensional by using a technique called a "vanishing point".  The people are given a shadow to appear as statues, also known as a "drop shadow".  

We also saw two additional very long and large murals on this walk.  There were actually two sides to one of the murals, but my camera

couldn't capture it all at once.  The first two pictures below are on one side, and the last 3 pictures are show the other side.

At the end of our walk, we found a really cool mural that is seen from the highway that depicts the history of Columbus.  This mural is known as the "Franklinton Mural" and was created by Greg Ackers.

Arcadia Mural

This is one of the few murals in clintonville.  It is located on Arcadia next to North Adult High School.  It was painted by Mike Walker.  In the mural you see many, many different things including, hippies, hippie vans, motorcycle police (CHIPS), road ragers with shotguns, dead bodies, and many signs of the apocalypse.  Higher on the mural there is a biker chick on an easy rider, American flag painted motorcycle.  Next to her is a pig-like creature on a vespa, with a sidecar with a very small Michael Jackson waving from the inside of a glass container.  A horse with wings is on a bicycle next to the pig creature.  On the far right is a skeleton with a mickey mouse hat on an Indian moped.  This mural covers two-stories. We saw this mural on one of our first mural walks.

Leen O' Caffe Mural

This Mural is located on the side of the Leen O' Caffe which is located on Hudson and Summit.  It was painted by Ben Arnold and D'lyn Stinziano and was funded by the Greater Columbus Arts Council.  This mural shows the community of Columbus. As you can see there are many parts of this mural that you could probably recognize if you live in or around the area, such as the Olentangy river, the Danube restaurant, the city scape, the fair, and many more. I think that this mural is a great visual example Clintonville's community.

George Bellows Mural in the Short North

On January 22nd, we walked throughout the Short North looking at murals.  This mural is a recreation of a George Bellows painting entitled, "Cliff Dwellers".  This mural was painted by Curtis Goldstein and his wife Michelle Attias.  We looked at it from a distance and discussed the painting's composition: the city and the scene that was taking place.  We also got up close and looked at some of the brush strokes and the details.  We compared the neighborhood in the painting to the neighborhood in the Short North.  Later we met with Curtis at Cup O' Joe where he discussed this mural with us.  We also interviewed him about what kind of materials we should use and how we should begin planning our mural.  Curtis told us, "part of my mission as an artist is to get people to be proud of where they're from" and that "art should serve a social purpose".  

Our Wall

This is the wall where we hope we will paint our mural, but first we have to find out who owns it!  It is located at the corner of Hudson St. and Indianola Ave.  It already has quite a few layers of paint on it and they are all cracking and peeling off.  We are going to have to power wash the wall first, and then prime it before we start painting.  There are a couple obstacles that we’re going to have to work through while painting, like the electrical boxes, the slanted top and the traffic on Hudson St.  Over all, this wall is in an excellent location and will be great once everything is primed and ready to be painted.