New student made mural
April 12, 2022
Coming back from spring break, students walked into Grand Ledge High School and found something new in the hallways. A big new mural was placed by the student services of the school for everyone to see.
The brand new mural given the name Homecoming was designed by Freshman Ellery Curtis. Curtis got the idea for the art piece during the first trimester of the school year in her art class with GLHS art teacher Sarah Coulon.
Curtis made a project similar to the one that is in the hallway. She made the first one as an extra credit project for class. Mrs. Coulon thought that it was an impressive art piece and gave Curtis suggestions which inspired her to make the mural.
“I pitched the idea [and told her] what if you did something similar to this the same style, but with students, and I said that’s awesome we are not going to do this at a small scale we should go super big with it, so I went and got [three] MDF boards to put together and combine to make it six feet tall and 12 feet wide.” Mrs. Coulon said.
Curtis first took some of the pictures of the first pep assembly of this school year and chose ones that would flow well together. She then traced the people in the photos in her own style and made a collage of it.
This wasn’t an easy task for Curtis. After the design was made, it was projected onto three big boards in the archery room. Curtis wasn’t alone when tracing this big design. She and other students Anna Zander, Rachel Carlson, Caleb Curry, Sonia Harris, Ruby Bosworth, Rhyan Bosworth, Vivian Tuckey, Nadya Styles, Elle Bonds, Kelbi Roman started tracing everything.
“From there we took it out of the archery room and into the art room,” Curtis stated “I finalized all the sketching because a lot of it was really blurry.”
After the tracing most of the painting was done by Curtis and her parents. She took the three big panels and through the spring break she painted it all and hung it by the student services hall way where there is a lot of student traffic.
“I was doing each board separately so I didn’t actually see it together till the end,” Curtis mentioned “ I had a lot of trust in the process… I would estimate the time that it took me to paint it to be around like 12 days straight.”
Mrs. Coulon shared how the placement of the mural was chosen.
“We really wanted to find a place that was busy… a high traffic area so that a lot of people would see it,” Mrs. Coulon said “Originally we were going to have it downstairs in an open hallway leading towards the new gym, but than we thought that [spot] doesn’t get a lot of traffic so we [kept] looking around and I pitched the idea to Ellery first [and] she liked the spot and than I asked Dr. Wright about what he thought and he said yes.”
Curtis shared some of the things she likes about her design.
“I like the football helmets because that way it’s kinda chaotic and it draws your attention so you know what’s happening and it’s something you can recognize. Although they were the worst to draw,” Curtis said “ I also love the color guard because it has motion.”
Mrs. Coulon hopes that in the future there will be more projects like this recent one that are student made.
“I hope that we’ll do many more,” Mrs. Coulon said “I think there is a lot of open areas in the hallways and we have more small, smaller scale stuff in the works right now… so hopefully more to come!”
Many students, teachers, and staff can see Homecoming everyday on their way to class or another location in the school. Curtis hopes that this will inspire students and artists like her.
“It’s really cool seeing art and seeing someone that someone painted,” stated Curtis. “For artists I want [them to want] to have their drawing up somewhere.”
