by Higgy Vasquez
Photography by Katherine Bowers
Creating a ‘Day Mural’ for an event is a fun and rewarding activity for communities, schools, and public participation. As an example, I created a Day Mural for a public event called the “Heartbeat of Mexico.”. My goal as a muralist was to focus on designing a mural that would meet certain criteria:
- The mural was to be painted within a 4 to 6-hour window by people attending the festive events.
- What was the theme to help me in choosing and designing content?
- Create something that anyone could paint. Color mixing, however, would be created by me throughout the day.
- Create a ‘maquette’ of the mural for painters to reference while painting.
I began to formulate an idea that I hoped would not only be enjoyable to paint but also educate anyone who asked about the images or wanted to understand the mural at a deeper level. The final result included historical images of muralists and artists that were well-known, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Frida Kahlo. Then I added images with color and cheer, such as the sun/moon, plants, and flowers, things that people love universally.
People love to participate. Here are some before and after photos, plus the community enjoying the day. The mural was extremely popular, and people would paint, go look at other things and then come back to paint some more. We had a steady stream of non-painters trying it out for themselves, who found painting a very enjoyable activity. We also had some advanced painters who quickly stepped up to paint. It was popular with kids, teens, and adults and overall a great activity for everyone involved. (The final mural was donated to the Musco Center for the Arts.)
Here are some pictures from the event:
