Since the beginning of the school year, art teacher Jodi Ellis and her Painting class have been working on three murals in the lower B hallway that rest in three insets in the wall.
Last year, principal Gail Holder asked Ellis to make a mural on the staircase going down to the basement. Once they finished that project, Ellis got the idea to make another mural.
“I was walking through the building during my plan to get some steps in,” Ellis said. “I walked in [to B hall] and I saw the insets. [The insets are] like a framed image. It’s waiting for artwork to go in there. So, I asked Holder over the summer if we could [make the murals].”
To complete the mural, Ellis and her Painting class came together to brainstorm ideas for what they wanted each mural to look like. Using those ideas, Ellis sketched out three rough designs in pencil, then put her drawings into ChatGPT to get three finished, colored designs. Ellis then had to have the designs approved by the administration before starting on the mural.
The murals represent the different classes offered in the hallway. Senior Hayli Scheffler is taking part in painting the mural based on Psychology and Biology classes. Although Scheffler enjoys painting it, she still faced difficulty while doing so.
“The DNA strand was really difficult because you have to shade,” Scheffler said. “I wanted two of them, but it didn’t work out. It was really difficult. I had to redraw one a lot of times.”
Junior Desean Williams, who worked on the mural based on Environmental Science and Marine Biology classes, also had difficulties painting the mural on the wall.
“I’m not that good at drawing in [the] lines,” Williams said. “Especially with painting it, I keep going out of the lines.”
Despite the difficulty, the paintings helped Scheffler and her classmates understand the effort that murals require.
“It really showed [me] the hard work that people put into murals,” Scheffler said. “I always thought it was just there and then done.”
The challenges senior Kaitlyn Tracy faced throughout this process have also helped her understand the mural process better.
“It’s definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Tracy said. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into it.”
Scheffler realized she now views the other murals in the school differently because of the effort she put into hers.
“It really showed [me] the hard work that people put into murals,” Scheffler said. “I always thought it was just there and then done.”
Tracy is proud of the effort her and her classmates put into each mural.
“I like the skeleton that’s on the part that I did,” Tracy said. “I think I did a pretty good job on that, and I think it’s going pretty [well].”
Ellis is happy with the effort she and her students put into the murals. She hopes her students are proud of their work and what they did for the school.
“My hope is that it gives some ownership to the students,” Ellis said. “They did something to beautify the school that will live long after they leave this school. I do think that having something that the kids are involved with that becomes a permanent structure in the school makes it feel more like theirs.”
Ellis is retiring after this year and is glad she is leaving part of her legacy behind.
“I’m retiring this year, so it’s interesting and exciting for me to leave something more permanent that will be seen after I leave,” Ellis said.
