New Mural Illustrates Pupils’ Vision of “My Wicklow”

An absolutely stunning mural has recently been finished in the upstairs activity room.  The project was instigated by Principal Catherine Sadlier in conjunction with The Greystones Art Group.  The school would like to thank The Greystones Art Group and the individual artists: Paul Flynn, Marie Loftus and her daughter Sinead for making such a beautiful contribution to our school.

We recently talked to artist Paul Flynn who worked on the project and told us a bit more about it:

“The Greystones Art Group recently held an art competition for primary schools in the Greystones area, which included Greystones Educate Together. The theme of the Art competition was ‘My Wicklow’. During the course of the competition the school principal Catherine asked the Greystones Art Group if we could do something for the children with a room that was available in the school, under the same theme ‘My Wicklow’. I was asked to call by and find out what sort of things reminded the children most about Wicklow and what they would like to see in the room. The pupils talked about some of the many places that they have been to in Wicklow. The suggestions were Powerscourt Waterfall and gardens, Glendalough, the Sugarloaf, Greystones beach, the sea, trees, forests, sheep, cows, and an area for everyone to make a contribution to the room.”

A proposal was put together which the school approved. The solution was a large mural with a seating area where the children could display animals created by themselves, just like a mini cow parade and a small beach area representing Greystones beach. It was decided to use all of the suggestions as a composite image in the mural and use the pond and the two winged horses in Powerscourt gardens as a focal point. The floor of the room, being blue, was ideal for representing the sea.

“While we were still painting the mural, Catherine brought the children into the room to have a look at us working and all we could hear were gasps of amazement from the children as they entered the room. This made it all worthwhile putting all the effort in. The project took five days to complete from the blank wall to the finished installation. The children were given patterns of sheep and cows to colour and come up with their own unique design. This way the children could create something to add to the installation.”

The mural was created using acrylic paints and covers 19.5 square metres of wall space. 12 square metres of green Baize were used to create the grassy/seating area and 150kgs of play sand were used to create the beach area. The artists were Paul Flynn, a professional artist from Bray who is President of the Greystones Art Group, Marie Loftus who is the Secretary of the Greystones Art Group and Sinead Loftus, her daughter, who was on work experience for her transition year, who also made a great contribution.