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.