Mural, Mural on the Wall...

It's amazing what can happen by sending 1 e-mail, that is how 'the mural project' got started. I sent 1 e-mail to Sharon, a professional mural artist from the United States that has ties to Woodstock, asking if she would like to assist my art classes in creating murals around the school. After a couple phone calls back and forth she booked her flight ticket, and came for 6 weeks, starting in the end of March till the beginning of May. We had 3 seperate art classes working on murals at the same time in different locations around the school. It is amazing how paint can transform a space.

The first group of pictures is the 'jungle mural' that the grade 9 art class did in a concrete playground area by the preschool/kindergraten and grade 1& 2 classroom. The space was very dark, and the children did not like to play back there, so we took it upon ourselves to make it into a friendly and cheery environment....and now they love it!

This a photo in my art classroom, the brainstorming and pre-planning stages.

Some students creating the watering hole for the giraffes and elephants.

Building up the jungle background

Each student was incharge of painting an animal, we tried to represent jungles from all over the world (hence, the panda, leopard, gorillas etc.).

The pictures below are of the finished project, who wouldn't want to play here now?

We invited the preschool/kindergraten and grade 1&2's to come and add something to the mural to make it their own. So, if you look closely you can see lots of ladybugs, flowers, snakes, butterflies and spiders painted by them.

This next mural was done by the grade 10 art class. Before Sharon even came to Woodstock, I asked around to see what areas of the school wanted murals. The music department responded the most enthusiastically to having murals and they had a lot of white walls because of all the practice rooms, therefore they got the most murals. This band silhouette mural is in the music lobby.

The silhouttes are of band students from the school, first we took pictures, then made overheads and traced the figures onto newspaper. From there we placed the newspaper figures on the music room walls (picture above) and then the students traced around them and started to paint.

This is a painting hanging in the music lobby done by art students in the past, we tried to match the colour palette of the canvas painting with our musicans.

The below pictures are of Indian musical instruments, the sitar is the guitar shaped instrument and the tabla is the drums.

As the final project of the semester for the grade 12 art students, they could choose what they wanted to paint. What did they want to leave behind at the school for other students to enjoy? Here are just a couple of the murals that the students created.

In all it has been a good year for the art department, we have been able to make art outside of the classroom for others to enjoy. This 'mural project' would never have been done without the help and support of Sharon, I hope she will come back next year....there are more white walls.

holy water

it had been a long 5 weeks without a weekend so we figured it was time to get away for a bit. so we decided to make the crazy drive down to haridwar, around 2.5 hours from here... one of the holiest places to visit for a hindu and one of the most interesting and in your faces places for white people. it was a great place to get to see the more "real" india. we sure realize how our life here in mussoorie and woodstock is not typical compared to most indians. people travel from all over to take a dip in the holy, bacteria infested water of the ganges to wash their sins away... we didn't take the plunge, but with the temperature in the high 30's it did look pretty inviting, but no, i only mustered up enough courage to dip the feet in... but along with these flocking pilgrims there are countless beggars, some genuinely down and out, some not... it's tough to know how to handle situations like these...

each day at sunrise and sundown there is a ceremony where people will float their prayers and offerings in small banana leaf baskets full of various flowers and a candle down the holy waters. it was amazing at how quiet and orderly things were. if these ceremonies ran like the majority of other services here like driving and banking... it could have been quite the chaotic affair, but despite the huge crowds it was peacefully quiet except for the noise of the river.

it was a great experience... so different from anything i can relate to