Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Is that a Renoir? Monet? Da Vinci? No, KBHR

Yesterday was not at all what I expected it to be, but not in a bad way. When I signed up for Community Care Day I expected grunt work. Getting my hands dirty. For example, a few years ago they worked on houses (I think in cooperation with Habitat for Humanity) there was painting, gardening, and even manly man tools were involved. In other words I was expecting to break a sweat.

I arrived around 9 a.m. to the elementary school office and am led in the direction of the art teacher's room. I'm elated - the art teacher! This should be tons of fun. A few co-workers had already arrived and were SO happy to see me because they knew I had some artistic talent, hello thank you art degree. I asked why they looked so worried we're just painting walls. I was informed that no we're actually painting - A MURAL. Now I work at a law firm, remember. Creativity is sparse. People were panicking. "How do they expect us to paint this mural?! I've never picked up a paint brush in my life!" To be honest, I was even a little worried. I saw the sketch the art teacher had drawn across two large bulletin boards. Then I took a look at the poster sized illustration that was her "inspiration". Yikes. I can paint, but I'm not THAT good.

We quickly got to work, and surprisingly things started coming together. I managed to make the water look interesting. Mixing a sea green color and while it was still wet mixing in a little blue and white for depth. Fun stuff. After lunch as I was walking down the hall to get back to painting I saw the bulletin boards from a distance and was impressed. Wow, they actually look pretty darn good.

The greatest part of the experience was the thanks and praise the kids were giving us all day long. Every time a class would walk down the hall we would hear things like:

"Thank you for coming to our school!"
"It looks great!"
"Good job!"
"WOW! You guys are amazing!"
"This is the best painting I've ever seen in my life!"
"Are you guys professionals?"

So sweet, right? Until:

"He's putting his finger in my ear! Tell him to stop!"
"Liar, liar pants of fire!"
"You're a baby!"

Kids.



THE FINISHED PRODUCT



14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that looks so great! I have no artistic skill whatsoever...honestly this looks great!

elysa said...

those look perdy good! that looks like way more fun that real work.

Anonymous said...

That's awesome! And I love the finger in the ear thing. Makes me miss working in a daycare.

Or not...

Tina Poe said...

It turned out sooo cute! Congrats for being part of that project!

Anonymous said...

you did that all on your own? wow, i am IMPRESSED! those are some snazzy paint skills you got!!

Anonymous said...

Ooh, that seems like so much fun. What a great project!

Unknown said...

oh! so cute!!! :-) Great Job Michelle....

Anonymous said...

VERY impressive!! Sounds like it was a lot of fun :)

Anonymous said...

They look great. Must've felt really good looking at them knowing you helped make them. :)

Lisa said...

Wow! Those are pretty fantastic. That would be fun, too. I love murals.

Princess Pointful said...

I'm pretty damn impressed there, lady! Good on you... and to think you wrote off your mural painting skills.

Eleni Zoe said...

Wow, that is just adorable. And I love the colours. That's such a wonderful thing to be a part of!

stilettoheights said...

wow...I am impressed, it looks great. Congrats on the mural and the good time.

Kristen said...

it looks fantastic. :)