11th Grade Painting Students Create Diversity Mural

A space themed mural focused on diversity located in the art building was created by 11th Grade painting class students this bimester.

The students spent approximately four weeks designing and painting the mural which consists of planets, stars and an astronaut communicating a message based on the work of the famous graffiti artist Banksy.

“It’s a mural where we want to represent diversity. So, we chose space because everyone has a different idea of space,” Sofia Vasquez, art student, said.

The mural was portrayed by painting 4 class, the teacher, Maria Luisa Molina, explained the principles of graffiti which was based on the ideas of the masterpiece done. Banksy was the center of inspiration which they wanted to conserve his concept of art.

“This mural came up from their ideas, we talked about Banksy which is a graffiti artist who makes his work by questioning people. He wanted to create not only vandalism but to generate emotions through his art,” Molina, said.

The students started with sketches until the met their final goal. In the mural, there are creative figures based on combined ideas. Collaboration between students was a success in this project since each individual contributed and took advantage of everyone’s abilities.

“The idea of teamwork is really cool because we came with the idea of how we were going to organize our mural based on all student’s ideas,” Alejandra Castaño, 11th-grade student, said.

Molina already had materials in her class that were provided by the school since the beginning of the school year. However, students contributed and bought some utensils to make the mural more unique. For example, they bought unique colored paints.

“We bought some paints but the school supplied us. Like we paid for some, but the school supplied us with some. And for example, the brushes are from the school and we bought some sponges,” Castaño, said.

Before the project started, Molina had to do previous research with school coordinations to get an available wall in school and to figure out the logistics.

“I had to investigate with the administration so they can give us permission to use a wall in the school and they gave us this wall that is next to the music class,” Molina, said.

This activity is an unusual but creative task that students can disconnect from a tense environment. The idea of the project was to be creative and innovative, also the students enjoy stepping out of the ordinary.

“I really like it because it’s original, it’s different, it’s like disconnecting from your other stressful activities from school,” Vasquez, said.