Job Complete!

After many many hours of hard work, our mural is done!

Here's what our school looked like before:

And now it had been transformed to this:

We hope our mural will help students learn about our local ecosystems, remember to care for the earth, and feel part of a joyful community each day they come to school. 

Thanks for all the help, everyone!

        

             Sincerely, 

                     Mural Team

Installing the Cloth

Once we finished working on the cloth sections of our mural, we had to hang them up with a special kind of adhesive. It was hard work getting everything all lined up and making sure it stayed in place.

Not everything lined up exactly as we planned, so we will have to go back and paint the seams another day.  

Adding in Animals

Now that our background was painted in, we could start adding more details to our ecosystem.
We thought about what animals belonged in our mural, and which part of the ecosystem they would be found.

We used photos and a projector to help us make them look realistic. 

Painting Parachute Cloth

For the top part of the mural, where it was hard to reach, we used a special kind of cloth that is used for murals. It's called parachute cloth, and after it's painted, it can be attached to the wall to become part of the mural.

First grade painted the leaves and bugs. 

Painting

Now that we had our design drawn on the wall and our colors all mixed up, we were finally ready to start painting. We started with the large areas and background colors.

With all of us working hard, the work went quickly. 

And we had a lot of fun while we did it. 

Grid Transfer

Now we had to take our small design on paper and transfer it to the wall.
To this, we used a grid transfer technique. We made a small grid on the paper design. Then we made a big grid on the wall, and we copied the design one box at a time to make sure everything lined up.
We had to measure carefully and double check our work.

First Grade Trips

Trips With The Lower School

April 25^th and April 28^th

            Over these two days we went on two separate trips with the first graders here at Wissahickon      Charter School Awbury. On these trips we visited the Awbury Arboretum for close up pictures on any nature we are thinking about using in our mural. The first graders completed cool activities such as scavenging for worms and slugs, drawing leaves, and a tour of the Arboretum.

The trip with the first grade was awesome and we all learned a lot, we may post more pictures of our cool trip with the first grade!

Starting the Mural

Starting the Mural

Friday April 1st 

            Two weeks ago we started our Mural! Or should I say, “Prepared for it?” There’s a lot to go into a mural and before you can start painting, you must follow the proper procedures. We started off by priming our wall. Since we didn’t have much time to do anything else, and we had to let the primer dry as well, that is all we did for the day. After the next week we drew the outline of the mural. Ms. Tamara mixed together all the colors we would need/decided to have for the mural.

We can't wait for what's next!!!!

Arboretum Trip

Awbury Arboretum Visit

March 10th 2016

Today we visited the beautiful Awbury Arboretum, which is luckily right across the street from our school, Wissahickon Charter Awbury. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. We walked around with our tour guide and nature expert Nancy Pasquier.

As we walked and viewed the amazing Arboretum, we sketched inspirations and took some photos. 

Nancy guided us and told us all about the different kinds of plants and animals that are native to Pennsylvania, and live in the area such as, Weeping Willows, Red Woods, Oak, Cherry Blossoms, Locust, Cat tails, and invasive plants like Phragmites. It was awesome learning about where we live and what animals and plants contribute to our environment, as well as getting to draw out some ideas for our mural.

After going on our tour of the Awbury Arboretum, we got a much closer look at nature and many cool ideas that we would incorporate into our mural!