Shaping up

Mario's and Ricardo's students continue to move forward on the mural. They traced colorful shapes on the walls they painted last week as places where more will go!

Paper Mache Perfection

The Black Forest Fancies and their class have made much progress for the "Gangsta Garden" float. Here they are using paper mache paste for the sides. For Halloween fun, the Black Forest Fancies dyed it green last class.

The Gangsta Garden

The Black Forest Fancies are making a float called 'Gangsta Garden.' It's combination of themes girls in their class were interested in.

First coat fun

Some students in Mario and Ricardo's class head outside to paint a first coat on their murals to be, while others stay inside the classroom to work on drawings.

It's all about perspective

It’s ten minutes into Mario and Ricardo’s class and students have settled down and started their drawings. The group of all boys has grown since last week. Now there are over twenty teenagers.

Mario and Ricardo hope to paint an outside mural with their class, and want to fill it with anti-violence themed renderings created by the students. Last week they brought in several art books to feed concepts some students had in the previous session, while trying to ignite ideas in others.

It was a challenging task for the students at first, but one that resulted in very creative and compelling compositions. One student drew a gun that was crossed out, while another student - who was more comfortable with writing- drew 'Violence is not the answer' in big bubble letters.

For right now they are staying indoors teaching students how to draw, and getting ideas for the mural onto paper.

As class continues students become more and more engaged in their work. Some even relocate to different desks to have more room.

Towards the end of the session Mario shows a couple of the drawings students are making to the class, and talks about what is working and what could use some additional work. The pieces that are described as successful - something that could eventually go on the mural -seems to get other students more involved in their own drawings. It almost becomes a contest to them.

At the 45-minute-mark, the end of class, all the drawings are handed in. Mario and Ricardo linger in the front of the room, sifting through the pieces of paper. It is incredible what some of the students came up with. Some of the quietist have the most interesting designs. One student who sat away from others in the way front, completely fixated on his work, keeps coming back to ask more questions and requests a book on how to draw action figures for next class.

They also illustrated how the drawings capture the students’ unique personalities. Mario and Ricardo line up two pieces of paper with two distinct houses drawn on them. One is squarer with almost a perfect triangle for the roof while the other is tall and narrow with a very slanting roof. They energetically discuss how these varying lines and angles show how each person thinks differently, how they experience things differently, and see things differently.