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April 20, 2011

Mural magic

There's always great pleasure in going out and looking at art, but jumping in and making it gives you a richer experience. Last weekend I had the honor of working with Mexican artist Marela Zacarias, who orchestrated a mural for Trinity College at the Trinfo Cafe.  Marela invited our art students to participate in this amazing neighborhood project.  I took time to work with her each of the 4 days and photographed the mural's progress.  Many kudos go to my dedicated students!

 Day 1: Priming the surface, to protect against wear and moisture.  Two coats!!  Grade school students started the priming earlier in the week, but unfavorable weather delayed the progress until our h.s. kids arrived.



Day 2:  Taking shape:  The evening before, Marela drew the basic design in pencil and when we arrived, the task was to start filling it in.  Lots of blue and orange to make it POP!  The waves and sunset began to emerge. Two young ladies from Trinity joined in the effort.


 Day 3: Defining the waves, then adding the floating furniture and faces with stencils and spray paint.  Marela had designed stencil images from photos she took of Hartford students during her stay here. Our students cut the stencil and spray painted the images over the background.

Two neighborhood gentlemen painted waves with us for most of the day.

A two-toned dreamer, spray painted in the lower wave.

Solangel arrives to give us hugs of support.
Me, Solangel and Marela. 
Day 4:  Finishing the waves lines and hours of touch-up, motivated by the next task:  highlighting the dreamers and furniture.  A few more of my students volunteer to maneuver a brush (and missing class is always a lure).

Student assistant and Marela.

High tide!

2 dreamers and a brush.
(one of them is me.)


This is the mural at the end of the day on Monday.  We had buses to catch and Marela had a reception to attend.  She will be back in a few weeks to finish up and we'll surely be there to assist.  It was a 'must do' art adventure.  We love you Marela!!