My trip to Guatemala is
coming closer and I'm very excited about the two projects on my
agenda! One is painting a mural in the two dorms of a brand new
clinic for children with cleft lip and palate, currently under
construction, by Tess Unlimited. This project is sponsored by the
Dutch foundation Colour 4 Kids.
The other project is a
mural with the students (age 9-17) of Alotenango´s municipal art
course. I'll be teaching the kids over the course of two weeks about
the history of muralism, how to create one from scratch, how to pick
a theme etc. This project is generously sponsored by Dr. Jim Bader.
While I was working on my
lesson plans, the worksheets were getting more and more elaborate and
I figured it would be pretty cool to actually turn them into a a real
book. And so the Manual for Making Murals
was born!
It's
43 pages long and includes:
- A short history of muralism through the centuries (prehistoric art, ancient Maya culture, Roman murals, medieval art, Renaissance, Mexican muralism, street art and graffiti)
- Colour (colour theory, colour psychology)
- Why painting community murals (impact, audience, how to get involved)
- Picking a theme (exercise to collaboratively pick a theme)
- Making a design (composition, background, symbolism, scale, enlarging through grid)
- Preparing the work (prepping the wall, getting materials ready, how to take care of equipment)
- Painting the mural (how to divide the work, mix paints, cleanup)
- The aftermath... (inauguration, press release, credits, thanks, report etc.)
The
manual is written in Spanish and include a lot of activities for kids
to do. The graphic design is in black and white, to make reproduction
cheap and easy. (The coloured cover is optional). Right now I'm the
process of finishing editing (many thanks to Neyla González for her
corrections) and then the mural is ready for print! The students in
Alotenango will of course each receive a copy, thanks to the Colour 4
Kids Foundation.
For
the near future, the idea is to offer the manual in PDF format to
whomever plans to create a community mural, in exchange for a $25
donation towards MuralArte's
projects.
Soon
more news on these upcoming projects!!!
