http://www.artprize.org/jennifer-mercede/2013/rockin-colors-mural
I saw Jennifer's work when I was down there visiting and fell in love with it right away. The bright colors, textures, and energy in the work just draw you in. So I sent Jennifer an email to see if she would be interested to work with our kids. She emailed me back and we started quickly planing from there! It is so exciting that this was all able to come together and I felt the excitement in the room today from the kids as well.
Students were given the opportunity to work in an expressive way that is very intuitive. It was exciting to hear the comments as they worked side by side on the mural with Jennifer. The first couple of groups were able to choose drawing tools to work with and then the later hours got to work with paint. Jennifer talked to them about different ways to paint, slow, fast, close your eyes, non dominant hand, etc. It was really neat to see how they reacted to the different feeling in the varieties of ways to paint.
Tomorrow we will have another round of kids work on the mural with Jennifer and then she will add the final layers to the work. Once it is installed in the hallway over 250 pairs of hands will have had a part in making this work. The kids may not be able to see exactly what they added to the piece once it is finalized, but they will always have that memory of what it felt like to be a part of creating this kind of art and they will know what they contributed to the work. It is sure to brighten up the halls at Nickels. More photos to come later!