Last year, art teacher Gillian Bailey put an ad for a competition on Schoology to paint a mural on the side of a tiny home in Richmond, and senior Enzo Ong and junior Avedis Gourjian rose to the challenge.
“I told some students about the call for artists and asked if people were interested in it,” Bailey said.
After entering the competition, AP 2D Design students, Ong and Gourjian, worked together to create a design that reflected the Bay Area.
“Coming up with the design took a lot of time,” Ong said. “We had to do all the drawings in a style that could convert to a large scale while still having realism.”
The two students split up different parts of the project.
“I started working on the composition of the piece and formatting it and composing what it was going to look like, and [Enzo] worked on the drawing,” Gourjian said.
Eventually, they landed on a design that focuses on Bay Area athletes and reflects the values of hard work and perseverance. It features athletes from a wide range of backgrounds alongside Bay Area landmarks and the city skyline.
“We are trying to have a lot of representation of different minority athletes in there from the Bay Area,” Ong said. “We want to showcase a ton of different backgrounds [and show] that hard work can make you successful.”
The mural includes athletes Jeremy Lin, Sabrina Ionescu, Rickey Henderson, Marshawn Lynch, Damian Lillard, Kristi Yamaguchi, Bryan Woo, Eileen Gu, Marcus Semien, Steven Kwan, Alysa Liu, Jim Plunkett, Danielle Slayton, and Tom Brady.
“Being able to find a composition that allowed everyone to shine and no one to be pushed off took a lot of iterations,” Ong said. “It just took a lot of time to find something we were happy with.”
Although the project is funded through the city of Richmond, Ong said that he and Richmond chose not to accept payment.
“I think they have the city of Richmond funding it, but we declined the money, and we’re doing it for volunteer hours,” Ong said.
Painting officially began on March 7 and is expected to be completed by August. The mural spans 14 feet long and nine feet tall, making it the largest project the students have worked on.
“None of us have ever painted at this scale before or used rollers or any of that type of thing,” Ong said.
Because of the mural’s size, the students have had to learn new techniques and figure out how to accurately enlarge their original design onto the wall, Gourjian said.
The team first spray painted the background and is now adding details using house paint. To transfer the design from paper to the wall, Gourjian and Ong are using measurements and grids.
“We are trying to make grids and measure out stuff to figure out where stuff is supposed to be,” Gourjian said.
The project has also involved learning how to use new digital programs and collaborating with professional muralists.
“I helped them a little bit with figuring out Adobe Illustrator, but they have been working with the muralists there too,” Bailey said.
Despite the challenges, Gourjian said seeing the mural come together has been rewarding.
“[My favorite part is] seeing the progress go down on the actual mural,” Gourjian said. “Figuring out solutions to all of the challenges along the way, that was really the most fun part for me.”
Ong said that other volunteers have joined the effort.
“I’ll have volunteers come out, people will ask me, or I’ll send something out, and people will come help paint it,” Ong said.
“It feels like a really good opportunity to help the community out there and bring something positive,” Gourjian said. “I feel like art is a good way to do that.”
