Mural

Together with the rest of my Introduction to Large Painting and Muralism class, I designed and helped paint a mural that is now displayed on one of the front walls of Site 1212 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. On this page, I will discuss some of the process that went into designing the mural.

For our first go at presenting concepts, we were given mostly free-reign, with our only real directive being our client, the Art Academy itself. The class presented mood boards and thoughts on themes and other murals that we liked. Prevalent ideas were a focus on Cincinnati and/or AAC related imagery, flat colors and outlines, and subject matter that would appeal to a general audience. From that, I came up with my first design, which incorporated the primary branding colors of the Art Academy (orange and green) as well as the cardinal, as the state bird of Ohio, and a small nod to the iconic Cincinnati skyline.

While the composition, colors, and pop style of the design were a hit, the imagery felt a bit basic and generic. Many students talked about using a skunk as a primary element of the design. The reason for this is that the AAC's seldom-used "mascot" is a skunk, taken from a part of the school's history, the Stinkers. The Stinkers were a soccer team organized by the school with the gimmick of being... well... bad at soccer. The Stinkers no longer exist and most students aren't even aware they ever existed. Despite this, the skunk as a symbol of the school persisted, so we all started heading in that direction.

My second design wasn't very popular. I was trying to play with the composition and add some dynamism, but the general consensus was that it felt confusing and arbitrary, which I'd say I agree with. However, it got the ball rolling. The circular compositional elements persisted, and I had the idea to combine them with an idea used by another classmate's design, that being the pattern on the rose window at Music Hall, an iconic landmark of Cincinnati.

In addition, at this point we started seriously discussing the Stinkers, and one student started using the idea of an anthropomorphic skunk soccer player. If you've browsed the rest of the website you'll know that such a thing is right in my wheelhouse, so I decided to run with that idea as well. We were also shown the Stinkers' old jersey by our professor, which ended up being very inspirational for me. In particular, the yellow jersey felt like it would go well with my existing orange and green color scheme, and the pose of the skunk on it gave me some direction for my drawing.

Thus, I ended up with this design, which after some small tweaks, became the mural that was chosen to be painted by the class.

While we were painting, we were approached by people voicing their thoughts, including someone who instantly recognized it as a nod to the Stinkers and said that it made them feel nostalgic. Hearing that I was able to conjure up fond memories with my design made the whole process feel worthwhile.

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