When you go into Scoil Fhursa you know there’s an energy about the place.  You get it from the staff and  you get it from the kids.  Of course, when there’s a new person  coming into the school to provide a  distraction to everyday life, there’s always a bit of a buzz about.  But I had a feeling the  buzz  was there  anyway.  There always seems to be something interesting going on.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            So when I was commissioned to do something to help brighten up a courtyard in  the school, I  knew this was going to be an energetic project.  They have already had a lot of  help from other parents  making benches and plant boxes for the area.  Now it was just the walls that needed sprucing up.

The principal was interested in exploring the theme of Irish legends.  We settled on an image for each of our walls. The bulls from the Táin muscling up to each other would be one; Setanta facing the ferocious hound of Chulainn  would be another; then the moment Finn Mac Cúmhaill accidentally tastes the salmon of knowledge by nursing his burnt thumb would be the third theme for our murals.

As these would be outside suffering under our legendary Irish weather, we needed marine ply to paint on.  The paintings would be completed on the boards, varnished with a speciality protective varnish and then mounted on the wall.  This system works very well as it means, once we have a room to use, we can do our work indoors.  No weather restrictions!

 The build-up to the project is as much fun as the actual painting itself.  I make sure to be as visible as possible as I project on my images.  I  leave the door open to the corridor so the boys see what’s going on.  Then they start asking questions and getting excited about the  project.  I also make a point of going to each class and talking about  the project – a little background on the stories and also letting them  see how I came through the process to the final illustrations.  IIf  they’re going to have ownership of the project, they need to get a  sense of it before they put a paintbrush anywhere near the boards.  I let them know it’s up to them from here on in to make the whole thing come to life and they definitely love the idea of being a huge team of artists.

Once drawn, it’s up to the boys.  Boards are flat on tables and groups of five or six at a time from each class to come down and make their mark.  The smaller ones manage the larger areas with less detail while as it goes up to more senior classes, the detail is taken care of.  There are so many layers needed for the colours to have the required depth that there is no shortage of jobs for the teams of boys.  The enthusiasm for the project is infectious.  Hands shoot up to be next to paint and there is an air of importance hovering around the group that ends up walking down for their turn.  Everyone is proud of this.  And so they should be.  It’s theirs.  That’s the satisfying bit for me.  I love handing this to them.

You can see the progression in terms of the many different layers and stages involved to make up the final look of these images.

Below, you can see the paintings at a later stage.  Once the boys completed their painting, I outlined all the paintings with black lines which helped highlight them and give them their final look.

In addition to the original three paintings, we ended up completing two others for the inside of the school.  One image is that of Cúchulainn in his last moments with the raven perched on his shoulder.  The other is a beano-style version of the Scoil Fhursa’s own crest.  When I was asked to do an interesting version of the crest all I had to do was think of the energy which I had been surrounded by over that past month.  It wasn’t a huge leap to think of the crest exploding with all the activities of the school!

N                  Now for the wall-mounting which should take place over the next week or so.  Really looking forward to seeing them all in place.