High school students paint the picture of success with basketball mural
The mural all together outside of the cafeteria. Photos by Colleen Cuneo
The Vikings celebrate their victory. Photo by Grace Roche
The grey scaled photo of the players.
The pieces being fit together on the art room floor.
Students carrying in the mural backing, donated by ScreenMobile SouthCoast.
The mural all together outside of the cafeteria. Photos by Colleen Cuneo
The Vikings celebrate their victory. Photo by Grace Roche
The grey scaled photo of the players.
The pieces being fit together on the art room floor.
Students carrying in the mural backing, donated by ScreenMobile SouthCoast.
With a state title in their hands following a successful season, the Wareham boys basketball team is now immortalized in the hallways they walk every day.
A 5 feet by 8 feet mural was created by students in Colleen Cuneo's Art 1 class. Her annual monochromatic project was scaled up and made personal thanks to an art teacher Facebook group.
Monochromatic means things consisting of a single color or hue. This painting was created with the signature Viking gold and blue.
“I made a more personal twist on it and kind of geared it towards making it more school-wide," Cuneo said.
The original photo was split up into individual squares and handed out to students based off of their abilities as "some panels were more detailed than others." Cuneo used a program to make the picture different shades of gray and traced it out on the squares.
“This was really just helping them learn brush control," she said. “It helped them with learning how to stay in the lines, but still create solid, opaque, clean paint areas— which was kind of a struggle for some kids.”
Cuneo chose a photo taken by Sippican Week Editor Grace Roche following the quarterfinal win against Wahconah Regional High School on Sunday, March 8. She said she "liked that there aren't a lot of faces in it."
While the photo evoked positive feelings of celebrating a win, Cuneo said she ultimately chose it because it showed unity.
“If you know the students, you know exactly who they are, but I think it'll be a nice timeless piece because there aren't many faces in it," she said. “It's just a Wareham basketball celebratory photo, and I think it can stay in the hallway for many years.”
Though some students figured it out early on, most who got to create the mural didn't know what they were painting. Cuneo kept it a secret from her students, only revealing the final image when it all came together.
Putting it up during lunch outside of the cafeteria, her mural drew crowds and positive responses.
"As they came out of lunch, they got to see it, and it got really, really great feedback," she said. “The basketball kids all came up and personally thanked me.”
As the school year comes to a close and students begin working on final projects, Cuneo said that the mural was part of her goal to make art more community-based. Plans are in place to do more murals, as the "kids feel like they're doing something really useful."
“They just love that their artwork is meaningful and that's not just a piece of paper they're going to recycle," she said.
