Menu
This was a mural that was designed and painted by my high school art students when I was working at Shanghai High School International Division (SHSID). After having met with the teachers in the PE department they were interested in having students in the art department create a hand-painted mural for their indoor tennis courts.
I had recruited a few students who were interested in taking on this project. After having a few meetings with the students, they started creating preliminary sketches that we voted on and I presented to the PE department.
This was the first mural to be painted on SHSID’s campus and was what started the mural club, which students are still participating in today (2023).
The students started with creating preliminary sketches for the mural’s composition. This process took around a month because we also needed to communicate and collaborate with the PE department as well. Working and communicating with a customer was a good lesson for the students as they needed to meet with the customer (PE department) and problem-solve to create what they (the customer) requested.
After brainstorming and determining exactly what the composition’s outcome will look like, the students set up a schedule to work on the mural.
1) I showed the students a grid technique with how to take a small sketch, grid it off, grid off the wall the mural will be rendered on (to the same dimensions of the the small sketch), and transfer the sketch to the larger area. I had taught them to not try to freehand the mural because it’s very easy to skew the proportions when you’re unable to see the entire painting all at once. The size of the mural was roughly 12 ft. x 16ft., so the easiest way to create something that large is to first start small.
2) It took almost a whole semester (working 1 to 2 days a week), but the students completed the mural. This mural not only started the mural club at SHSID but also became an annual project that a new group of students would work on, collaborating with different departments on campus.
Be sure to subscribe to the email newsletter to keep up with my art projects, tutorials, and art experimentations.
