Student Mural Paintings of Character Traits

I was lucky to spend two afternoons & evenings taking art documentation photographs of mural paintings made by some very talented students.  For those who don’t know, my “day job” is working as a teacher in a K-12 school called Global Leadership Academy.  GLA is part of Mapleton Public Schools, located in Denver, Colorado.

We have an awesome art program, and while I am a Special Education teacher at GLA, our two art teachers are very supportive of my unquenchable thirst for artistic activity. So when it came time to create photo documentation of some recently created mural paintings, I was asked to do the  job.

These murals were created by high school students, under the guidance of the secondary level art teacher, Amy Brown. The goal was to paint a mural to represent each of the character traits of our school (compassionate, courage, respect, responsible, trustworthy, & scholarly) and one to represent our school identity and mascot (GLA Pumas of Denver, CO).

Each mural is 48 inches high x 24 inches wide and was painted by a small group of between 2-5 students. The murals hang in our cafeteria and have helped to give a real sense of school pride to our kids, as well as to our staff.  It was a joy to photograph them, as it helped me to see them in more detail than I’d ever been able to notice in the midst of my typical busy days.

It was also a challenge to photograph them and I was excited how much I was helped by the lighting skills I learned at  the recent “Flash Bus Tour” speedlight training in Denver, CO.  Another post will follow with the specifics of my shoot including details on my lighting setup to photograph the murals. For now, here are the paintings of our amazing students, with credit to the artists who created each mural:

“COMPASSIONATE” by:  Emilio Gonzales, Antonio Sanchez, Edwardo Victoria & Jaime Victoria

Compassion: Global Leadership Academy

“COURAGE” by:  Ana Flores, Francisco Jaquez, Rosalba Martinez, Maya Reyna & Ruby Sanchez

Courage: Global Leadership Academy

“RESPECT” by: Alex Brown, Wendy Ceballos, Brenda Gonzalez & Deisy Rojas

Respect: Global Leadership Academy

“RESPONSIBLE” by: Alex Argumedmedo, Selena Berrera, Tyler Hall, Sarah Jaramillo & Alejandro Lara

Responsible: Global Leadership Academy

“TRUSTWORTHY” by:  Monica Carrera & Bethany Wood

Trustworthy: Global Leadership Academy

“SCHOLARLY” by: Raphael Bucio, Stephanie Nelson & Ramon Zaragoza

Scholarly: Global Leadership Academy

“GLA PUMAS OF DENVER, CO” by:  Laisa Anchondo & Karla Guttierrez

GLA Mascott, the Puma, & Denver, CO Skyline

It is so exciting for me to see our students developing their artistic talents, and a pleasure to witness their sense of school pride and accomplishment while doing so.  Hats off to our art students and their teacher, Amy Brown!