I recently visited a school in Adams Center, New York to draw a maze on one of the school walls. I have often told the story of how as a very young child my parents caught me drawing on the walls and taped paper on the walls and said “go ahead!” Well I had come prepared with a roll of special paper that I frequently draw on for mural size mazes but the school said they wanted the maze drawn directly onto the wall! I was delighted to oblige.
Drawing directly on walls presents several unique challenges: I go through a LOT of Sharpies, the texture of the wall and the paint tear up the tips and ruin the markers pretty quickly. The paint doesn’t absorb the ink very well so it’s sort of resting on the paint rather than absorbed in. (they will be covering the maze with a piece of plexi so kids can solve it with wipe off markers.) Lastly, I’m 47 years old and getting down on the floor to draw the lower parts of the maze on a wall requires a level of contortion I am not especially adept at! But I managed just fine and the end result was a lot of fun.
Throughout the day kids visited me while I was drawing and I would take suggestions for what to include in the maze. It includes the school’s service dog, a library pet, and a wild assortments of random objects and animals from a basketball playing elephant to an ice cream cone.
The end result was a 6 foot by 6 foot maze directly in front of the library. It took about 4 hours to complete with breaks to sign books and answer questions.
The first day I presented my Once Upon a Toon assembly program to two schools and then returned on the second day to work on the mural.
If you are interested in a mural residency for your school contact [email protected]
