I want to tell you about the process so that you can better understand how much work goes into planning a great work of art. Some people seem to think that great works of art are made by artists who just “are inspired.” This is not usually true. Usually artists go through many ideas before coming to a great one, and go through many revisions before getting it just right.
In the spring of 2013, Kit had the idea of commissioning a mural to celebrate Ann Arbor Open’s 30th anniversary. We asked Mary Thiefels to help us design and paint a mural. Mary is a professional mural painter. Painting murals is her job.
Here are some murals she has made before:
We gathered ideas and opinions from all of the students of AAO. Via a whole-school survey, we asked:
What are some words that come to mind that describe what the Open school is all about!?
What are some images that represent what we do at the Open school?
What types of shapes, colors, animals, or natural things do you want to see in the mural (other than pandas, of course)?
We also asked about what style people thought we should use.
Mary, her assistant Danjiel, and I read all of the surveys. People had a lot of ideas about images that showed kids learning, pretty things, and pandas. Overall, people wanted to see a combination of realism and abstraction.
Using a computer imaging program, Photoshop, Mary and Danijiel made this designed, based on the results of the survey:
Through in-class discussions, it became clear that our students wanted a design that was less literal, more symbolic. We also wanted something that had big kids in it.
So, Mary and Danjiel made another design:
We liked this one better, but felt that it could be about any school. We were having a hard time figuring out how use images to represent what is special about Open. It was really a challenge.
We set the project aside over the summer. Then there were some things that gave us ideas.
Mary and Danijiel made a really cool design for another downtown mural:
The yearbook came out and I saw the “leaping in” and “leaping out” pictures. I have always loved these pictures, and I felt like the poses captured something very Ann Arbor Open - something about the enthusiasm and individuality that are special features of our school.
We tried combining these two ideas:
This seemed more “open-ish.” But, we still were not totally satisfied. The colors lacked unity. It did not look like Ann Arbor. It seemed like there was too much going on. We felt like we were finally headed in a good direction, though
Mary and I got out our sketch books. We had an idea about using the top part of this mural and the silhouettes of leapers. Here are the sketches we made for background ideas:
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Layers (subterranean to outer space)
with notes about value - getting lighter toward center
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Ann Arbor skyline (with Bell Tower)
with notes about color
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Here are some sketches we made while trying to work out the colors:
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| oil pastel |
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| photoshop |
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tempera paint
Here is the color plan we finally decided on:
At last, in the winter of 2013- 2014, we were finally ready for kids to to start painting the mural! We had more of a plan than a design, exactly.
In shifts of five at a time, 500 kids took turns doing the painting.
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Using a maquette as a guide, they painted the background in solid colors, showing the Ann Arbor skyline, trees, the river, layers going into the earth, the sunrise, layers going into space.
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| maquette |
Next, they added doodles into each layer. The doodles were painted in in similar colors to the background - tints and shades of the background colors, so that from a distance they just created texture, but are visible up-close.
Last, we projected images of AAO kindergarten and eighth grade leapers on top of the background. We traced them. The kids painted them black. Then Mary added white outlines to increase contrast.
You can see the finished mural above the front entrance of the school. Everyone LOVES it! It really represents the spirit of our school.
