Has anyone done this? One of the fifth grade teachers had a mural painted recently in her room! I never even knew it was permitted. If I were to take this step (if I get so very ambitious to ask and do), what kinds of paints would you use? We have block walls. I would do some Florida-related artwork, maybe something like the Castillo de San Marcos and lighthouse in St. Augustine, a manatee, some orange blossoms, and state symbols. :woot:
In my experience, tempra cracks, just FYI. I would use some artist quality paints, whatever those are. I think it would be awesome to have a mural in the classroom. It's nice of you to keep it general to your area in case the classroom is used for another subject or grade level in the future.
I haven't painted a mural, but one of my good friends down the hall did.. She painted an island, and hung a pig mask on it, and the students were helping to decorate it- Lord of the Flies style.. she also repainted her desktops.. they were in pretty bad shape.. she changes things up quite a bit, but then we are in a part of the building that will be redone in a couple of years, so admin doesn't care too much.
I have always wanted to paint a mural in my room! But, I haven't even asked because I'm trying to time the asking, and have it all planned out first! Our custodial staff is pretty territorial, and they like to just decide to repaint walls... so I'm thinking that might be the biggest stumbling block. . .
I would LOVE to have a "nice, big shady tree" in my class, but I'm not artist. I couldn't even sketch one. Love this site, Sandra
You don't have to.. Can you trace? Find one on the internet, print it out, copy it onto a transparency, and blow it up on the wall. Trace the edges with pencil. Go around the edges with tape (it will take a lot as it will be folded around all the curves) and paint. If you want to get really cool with it, find some cool branches in the wild, and attach them to the wall.
In our school, custodians are not allowed to paint. Painting is part of "maintenance" and you can wait YEARS for maintenance to paint your classroom.. unless of course you have graffitti.
I muraled my son's bedroom-ok, not cinder block walls, but... I painted the walls with regular wall paint then used acrylics over it. I then sprayed with a lacquer (sp!) of sorts-read the labels-to keep it looking good. The spray STINKS so make sure it is a well ventilated area and give it some time to air before the kids come.
We couldn't do this in our rooms--all painting must be done through the maintenance deptartment, and it is functional, not decorative. We did have a mural painted in our library 2 years ago as a memorial to one of our teachers who passed away. The artist used acrylic paints right onto the painted cinderblock wall.
A woman down the hall from me did a bunch of paintings on butcher block paper, and then cut them out & laminated them & put them on the wall that way. It looks SOOO neat!
I have an odd shaped room with little closet sized rooms off of it. I had an art student paint one of those rooms like a jungle. It counted as an art project for her and I got a nice jungle. I also had my kids start to paint my bathroom. Last year we only got a base of blue up, but the kids loved painting. One of my students brought in the blue paint left over from painting her bedroom. Sometime this year I would like to add fish to the painting (print off coloringbook style pictures from the internet and copy onto a transparency sheet. Then trace the pattern on the wall and paint). I also have left over from many years ago a giant picture of the school mascot on one of my walls. I have an odd shaped room with little closet sized rooms off of it. I had an art student paint one of those rooms like a jungle. It counted as an art project for her and I got a nice jungle. I also had my kids start to paint my bathroom. Last year we only got a base of blue up, but the kids loved painting. One of my students brought in the blue paint left over from painting her bedroom. Sometime this year I would like to add fish to the painting (print off coloring book style pictures from the internet and copy onto a transparency sheet. Then trace the pattern on the wall and paint). I also have left over from many years ago a giant picture of the school mascot on one of my walls. A few years ago I helped my mom with VBS. She did the same thing with the overhead, but did the pictures on cardboard (fridge size). She used different characters and left off their heads. She then cut a hollow where the head should be. Results – a great spot for kids to stick their head over the card board and look like the characters. Everyone loved it!
The site artistshelpingchildren (dot org) has a whole page dedicated to painting murals for children. At the very bottom of the main page there is a link to "How to Paint a Mural" in very small letters, but it has so much information and really great ideas.
