Wall art.

Teaching at a new school presents an exciting visual challenge for an art teacher--monotonous brick walls just waiting for decoration. Fortunately, for the first four years of our high school's existence students have respected these blank institutional walls as well as the student artwork displayed upon them. Our school experienced only minimal instances of graffiti, but as an art teacher, I did see an interest in graffiti in student sketchbooks. Combining this observation with that art teacher drive to improve the visual environment of our school led to the development of a wall art unit, focusing on graffiti and murals.

Through two connected studio lessons, students learned about the history and social significance of both graffiti and painted murals. For the graffiti lesson, students created a miniature brick wall on which they painted their graffiti. For the mural lesson, students learned about watercolor and painted a local city scene into which they painted their mural idea in acrylic. The culminating activity of the unit invited interested students to paint actual murals for our school.

Each lesson began with looking at visual examples, a brief summary of the history of the art form, introduction to vocabulary, a discussion of characteristics, and a sketchbook assignment.

Three different sketchbook assignments were given throughout this unit. The first involved developing three graffiti sketches based on the following: a dedication, a nickname or public identity, and a philosophical of political statement. The second assignment asked that students develop three sketches for a mural based on the following criteria: to promote a specific cause, to use perspective to emphasize the sense of illusion, and a free choice idea. For the final assignment, students had to choose three areas in our school and develop a different mural idea for each area.

Each lesson required some additional research and prep work on the part of the teacher and students. To make the miniature brick walls, early in the semester before actually beginning this project, each group was given two or more pre-rolled large slabs of red clay and two strips of scrap board. One strip was cut for the height of the bricks and one was cut for the width of the bricks. Students used these strips to mass-produce bricks. Students wishing to build a wall with some architectural variation of the bricks were encouraged to build special bricks.

Helpful Tips

* Be sure to make more bricks than you think are needed.

* Make half bricks for edges.

* For the mural lesson, color photos to be used as a source for their paintings were taken of city scenes in the three communities that feed our high school.

Each student as well as myself assessed the finished projects. Finished graffiti pieces were evaluated for the following: the wild style or bubble style of the writing used for the name, dedication, or philosophical/political statement; the use of graffiti characteristics such as bubble letters, highlights, 3-D effects, cloud effect, bright colors, outline, etc.; the visual impact of your piece; the technical use of the brush/application of paint. The watercolor/ acrylic mural paintings were evaluated for the following: use of transparent watercolor techniques; the visual impact of their mural idea; the use of mural characteristics such as integrating aspects of existing architecture, creating illusions of architectural forms, the use of aerial and/or linear perspective to create illusions, and the use of trompe l'oeil. For each lesson students also wrote a personal reflection about their project and shared five things learned about graffiti or murals.

Finally, the unit concluded with interested students designing and painting a triptych mural, which creates the illusion of windows in a major stairwell, three smaller murals to identify hallway wings, and one to identify the art wing. These murals were completed by the last day of school, installed over the summer, provided a colorful welcome to students, and enhanced the visual environment of our high school.

NATIONAL STANDARD

Students conceive and create works of visual art that demonstrate how the communication of their ideas relates to the media, techniques, and processes they use.

WEB LINKS

www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/art

www.bronxmall.com/tracy168

www.graffiti.org

Connie Q. McGinley is an art teacher at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado. [e-mail]