A Mural with Class

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

For a high school, this mural was to include different academic and extracurricular programs represented by different students on a parade float. It measures 20' x 6' 6", acrylic on mdf board, transported and hung in the large commons area. I encourage critique and comments, and thank you ahead of time.

Sherry

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

More...

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Detail...of the mascot of the high school. I have pictures of "The Past" panel, with historical content, and "The Purpose" panel...the goal is to graduate...but I am borrowing a computer and cannot reduce the pictures to fit the format.

T.A.L.ENT. · Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 2111 Location: Va.Beach VA.

sheesh thats alot of work ...hats off sherry WTG what a GRAND mural...

1st year apprentice · Joined: 22 Jan 2010 Posts: 2043 Location: Scotland

Conveys it all.

Some day in the future, your family will look at this and say" Granddad/ Gran did people realy look like this ,and travel on the back of a truck/cart all so different and no one with a Space suit, did they?"

Brian

arlene · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 7769

stupendous job!!!!

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Talent: I bow in your most general direction...your work is stunning, and I especially am impressed with your latest work. I hope to progress to where I can paint with the quality and level of professionalism that I often see here on Faux Forum Index. That's why I appreciate comments, and listen carefully to critiques.

Brian: My kids are generally "Oh-hum" about what I do. I have children who display their own unique talents and they will probably wow me a lot more than me wowing them! LOL! It is funny, though, that I have four of my kids represented in the float. (I did not intend to put anyone specifically in the mural, but I managed to gain the likeness of those mentioned four...quite surprising)! I captured an amazing likeness of my soon-to-be 6th grader, and so she will be seeing herself when she finally gets to high school. I have heard several comments about who all is in the mural, but this is the amusing part: all of the students depicted in the painting are "generic", but everyone and their cousins spot themselves or their friends on the float! Concerning my offspring: Five have already graduated...only two more to get through the public school system...So, in theory anyway, the school administration will be looking at the mural with their spacesuits on, wondering about why I put only some of my offspring in there, waving back at them!

Sherry

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Arlene: Thank you for the applause...I missed your comment while I was submitting my last reply. It was the most stupendous mural that I have worked on as far as time goes...started to plan my layout on the last day of November, and finished it all Feb. 28th. If it were a leapyear, I would have been leaping with joy because I was sweating through some of the journey of seeing this get completed before spring break!

Sherry

Ron Francis · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:12 am Post subject:

Yes, what Talent said.

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Ron: I'm in awe with your abilities, Sir...thank you. I may be trying too hard, but I hope to get to the point where you have arrived years ago, probably...making something believable and almost tangible-delicious in a painting. By the way, why are you no longer doing murals? I can guess that the answer, according to your site, is that you want to focus on smaller works...but, tell me that isn't so!

Sherry

sonol'artista · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:23 am Post subject:

Huge project! Lots of hard work here...acres of composition had to be dealt with! Congrats.

Ron Francis · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:03 am Post subject:

Sherry,

cleta · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 3232 Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Great mural, Sherry! Lots of energy and enthusiasm.

sabralynne · Joined: 01 Jun 2008 Posts: 2044 Location: Louisville, KY

Wow is that a lot of work! Looks great, Sherry!

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Ron: I apologize for not realizing what you have gone through...I haven't been reading up on this forum for a few months...hurts to see people know what to do with what abilities they have and use them to achieve in an artistic sense of what they want to do in life (that WAS a mouthful), and here I sit with these overworked murals...but life IS short, and I'm going to get over myself and keep trying. I can see what you are saying, and I know that your talent will prevail with whatever you chose to do.

Thank you for your kind comments, Cleta and Sabralynne! I guess it does look like work, but it isn't work to me...I have more fun painting then baking cookies! (Sorry, Hillary, for misusing your quote).

Here are "The Past" and "The Purpose" panel...more overkill, I guess, but it occupied me for 3 months and kept me out of trouble!

Sherry

Muralmel · Joined: 29 Dec 2009 Posts: 60 Location: Sheffield

It's a great mural Sherry. And very ambitious too!

Pat · Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 9:56 am Post subject:

BAM! Nice job. Now that is a lot of people......I would love more close ups as there is so much too look at.

As far as your kids go, i laughed out loud. My family is reletively numb to it as well.. I did a portrait of my daughter a copule years back and showed it to her. She was like, "nice" and then went straight to the computer games. Too funny!

sdbydv · Joined: 15 May 2006 Posts: 1082 Location: New York

Sherry,

What a great project. Love the ingenuity of your design. Actually, I love everything about it.

Congratulations on a great job.

Debbie

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Muralmel: May I gush a little? Your work is awesome...you're where I hope to be as far as accomplishing some masterpiece...thank you for commenting!

Pat: I have a little closer ups...so I'll toss them in. Just to show you that teenagers seem to have the "whatever" attitude no matter where they live...one son didn't even want to be in the mural...I got a perfect likeness of him..."Whatever." But...when he was showing his friends the mural, he made sure to point out where he was....and then, one of my other high school boys wanted to be in the mural...and he went in like a glove. But, he was unsettled when he saw his 6th grade sister in the mix...didn't think it was a good idea to include her. She was delighted...and students that know her spotted her right away...(a few years older then in real life but easily recognizable). My other son has long left school...doesn't even know that he got stuck back at a high school level mural! WOW. I didn't mean to paint my own kids in there, with the exception of the one son who demanded to be in there!

Debbie: I wanted so many things going on, that the corny sense of humor would still amuse even the most cynical student, without losing the value of the message. Thank you for enjoying it!

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Here is a closer view of "The Past" panel.

Maria · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 7:56 am Post subject:

Sherry,

There is a lot of work and a lot of detail that went into creating this mural. I love the way you put this together. Beautiful.
Maria

KathyFakesIt · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:16 am Post subject:

Sherry
You have almost as many kids as you painted!

Huge undertaking, great job - they must be so thrilled.

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Maria: Thank you. I cherished the fact that I had control over content of the mural, even though there were key points that the school wanted to make. These key points provided the framework for the 3 part theme. I wanted to see where my limitations were, and to improve on where I was weak, so I toyed with placing in everything from balloons to a bird in a cage. I had all these various "What will appeal to high school kids without upsetting administration kinds of ideas," and the main thing was to do the painting puzzle with no pieces missing, other than common sense!

KathyFakesIt: The baby bringin' stork was totally nesting at our home for 20 years! Discovering it was still around when I turned 42, we finally figured out how to make it migrate back to New York City by threatening to defeather it. Now that I can actually find time to paint, thereby proving that painting a large scale mural is nothing compared to having a house full of kids and a bunch of feathers laying around!

This painting started the whole thing rolling for the Tiger Spirit mural. I donated it and it has been hung up in the front foyer of the school. That's all my show n' tell for today!

Sherry

pascal · Advisor Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 1020 Location: france

Beautiful job Sherry !! I really like it and I like what you say about your work , your passion and will to keep growing in this demanding field.
The amount of work and focus you have put on this project is really impressive , it is just so nice to see !!

Congratulations

Pascal

Laughlines · Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 131

Pascal: You're an amazing guy...enjoyed your latest postings and your attitude and your art inspires me... thank you!

Sherry