Allendale Township Community Park Mural, Allendale, Michigan, USA

For this project, I organized a community paint out! First, I put a call out to the community to draw bugs and flowers. I traced these drawings and put them all together on three pages. Next, I mocked up a scaled design for the wall. Then I prepped the wall and painted outlines for the big community paint out on the fourth of July. I picked the colors and organized the setup. Allendale True Value donated materials for this project, and the community foundation, with support from the Allendale Business of Commerce, covered the remaining costs.

On the fourth of July, people in the community came out and spent time painting the wall; everyone painted most of the mural! Over the next few days, I touched up the mural by unifying the colors, touching up the outlines, painting a striped border, and finally adding an anti-graffiti clear coat. The community loves the colorful mural, which is in the Allendale Township Park, Allendale, Michigan.

Imagination Station, Oakwood Intermediate, Allendale, Michigan, USA

For this project, I worked with 4th and 5th-grade students at Oakwood Intermediate interested in an extracurricular art class. Over six weeks, students arrived early to school and learned two different drawing techniques. First, they learned how to draw what they saw. Looking carefully in the mirror, each student worked on their self-portrait. They used contour lines, looked carefully at their reflection, and slowly drew what they saw. Then students played with weighted pencils creating funny creatures. The final result was displayed in the hallway for all to see.

Oakwood Intermediate Mural, Allendale, Michigan, USA

For this project, I worked with 4th and 5th-grade students at Oakwood Intermediate interested in an extracurricular art class. Over six weeks, students arrived early to school and learned different painting techniques. First, it was essential for students to learn to mix their colors from the primary colors. They did a color mixing and painted individual paintings they could take home. Then they moved onto the larger project, the group mural. For this project, students worked in groups to develop the interior of the building. They wanted a classroom, the exercise lab, the teacher’s room highlighted. Students learned my technique of collaging and sewing painted canvas together. The final piece hangs in the office at Oakwood Intermediate.