A Teacher's Role in Making Murals

grade 5 students sizing up the buildings for the village scene

I am receiving some comments about our winter murals that have questions.   Therefore, I have decided to make another post about my role in making this project a success.  I happened to have several photos taken on days we worked on the mural and this gives me a chance to share those as well as details of how much I was involved with this project.

After the panels were assembled, we designated a winter color for the landscape feature of the hills, mountains, icebergs, and slopes.  I had kids chalk in the outline for the distant horizon line and then 3 or 4 students per mural shared the job to paint.  Mountains were a lavender color, the hills in the distant village were a tint of blue, the ski slope was made with royal blue, purple and white, and finally the iceberg were made with a tint of turquoise. 

grade 5 students making animals for scene

Presenting the Idea -  they knew that it was a project to keep here at school and had a specific purpose at the Winter Concert

Artistic Influence  -  background based on landscapes and portrait background of Vincent Van Gogh

Building the Background  -  oil crayon swirls layered with tempera

Collage Elements  -  Lots of snow flakes, plenty of pine trees, village buildings, snowmen, penguins, owls, other winter animals

Boxes and Clipboards  one for each mural

Neatness with Glue  -  close to edge not all over the entire back of the piece

Impromptu Decisions  -  made  an extra panel to accommodate all the owls;  simplified the background by using colored paper and only white paint for the swirls.  Tree, snowflakes, and owls were all collage elements. 



adding tufts of cotton along edge of street to represent snow banks




applying glue to edge of framing strip


The final framing around the edge was made from 4 x 18 inch strips of colored construction paper.

I gathered a group of interested student volunteers to have a demonstration on folding the strips, how much glue to use and where to put it, and showed that  overlapping  was necessary for connecting the framing strips.  They picked it up right away.
I did a lot of the framing at the same time to keep the momentum going.