Aliso Elementary School mural unveiled : Dubbed "The Bridge," mural project was part of 15-year-old program (Santa Barbara News-Press)

September 2, 2009 7:07 AM

Children, teachers and proud parents gathered Tuesday afternoon for the Aliso Elementary School mural unveiling in Carpinteria.

The mural was created during the Summer Youth Mural Program hosted by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. For the past 15 years the program has been offered primarily to high school and middle school students. This year marked the first time the program has been offered to elementary students including third, fourth and fifth graders. In the past the program was structured so the students came to the museum and worked on the project and later the mural would be moved to another venue in the community. This year, however, the museum was able to do the mural project on site at Aliso School.

This summer's project has been a six-week program with a few weeks to gather ideas and get supplies and three weeks to work with the kids and complete the mural.

The mural was inspired by a painting called "The Bridge" by Max Pechstein, a German expressionist. Senior art teacher Susan Griffin, who chose the piece, said that this painting was a personal favorite so she decided "The Bridge" would be the inspiration for the mural .

"We started with kids drawing the bridge in pencil, colored pencil, then we moved on to chalk pastels, then we watercolored the bridge and we moved on to painting (it) on canvas with acrylic paint, and finally we gave the kids big sheets of paper to practice their big brush strokes," Ms. Griffin said.

The big mural began with a sketch on a white board that kept changing until the product was satisfactory. "The fun part for me was when the kids had their big sheets of paper and were drawing big things. I gave them color wheels and while they thought no one was listening, one student became frantic that there was no green paint left, but the surrounding students helped out and said, 'No, if you mix blue and yellow you make green.' ... they just figured everything out on their own," Ms. Griffin added.

The director of Education, Patsy Hicks, 55, said the most exciting part "is the kids are going to walk by this mural and they are going to remember this bridge and the way they are this summer and it connects them to their past and hopefully it will be the bridge to their dreams and their future."

Adrianna McElearney, 10, stated her favorite part of the project was "painting the big one and (being able to) see all the color and all the work we did." Adrianna added enthusiastically that of the pieces in the mural that she was responsible for painting, "the little people were (my) favorite because there is so much detail in them."