ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605280024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER
Januari Brown has found a new love: painting.
She became curious when a class at the Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy began cleaning a wall in the school's cafeteria. When the students began painting a lion and lioness on the wall, Brown asked if she could help with the mural even though she had never done any drawing or painting except doodling with a Magic Marker.
Quickly, the sophomore at Roanoke's alternative education school discovered she loved painting. She helped to paint the lioness' ears.
"It was fun," Brown said. "I'd like to do some more."
Brown and about a dozen other students discovered they could become artists. They painted a 10-by-17 foot mural of an African scene featuring the lion and lioness with dark blue mountains in the background.
Students designed and painted the mural to help relieve the sterile appearance of the cafeteria, which has bare walls and no windows.
"They wanted to do something for the school and they thought this would brighten it up a little," said Anne Sphar, a teacher in the school's teen outreach course.
Students in the class do community service work at different agencies. They also do volunteer work to help beautify and improve the school.
Students wanted the mural to include a lion because that is the school's mascot. The girls asked that a lioness be included to balance the male presence.
"It was their idea and their design. They wanted the mountains and the green grass in the front," Sphar said.
Robbie Muse, a Roanoke artist, has been a consultant on the mural project but she said it is basically the students' creation.
"These are tough kids. They respond well to art," she said.
About a dozen students have been working on the mural for six weeks. Most are in the teen outreach class, but Brown and several others offered to help after the project started.
Junior Steven Jefferson said he found that he liked painting and might take it up as a hobby.
David Davis, a sophomore, said, "I had never done any painting before, but they let me help out. I helped paint the bottom part of it."
Students must put the finishing touches on the mural before it is dedicated next month. They have invited Superintendent Wayne Harris for the ceremony. They will put the name of the school at the top of the mural.
Sphar said it was difficult to get students started because they had no art experience. No one wanted to clean the wall, the first step in painting the mural, she said.
Once the students began putting brush to wall and creating the scene, they became absorbed and focused on the details, Sphar said. "They didn't want to leave each day until they had finished their part."
Students mixed the colors and cleaned the brushes.
"It helped their confidence. When we began, they said they didn't know anything about painting or how it was done," Sphar said. "There was a transformation of the students."
After work began on the mural, the whole school became interested, Sphar said. " I had a lot of students who asked me to work on it. Everyone wanted to be a part of it."
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Januari Brown, a 10th grader at the Noel C. Taylorby CNBLearning Academy, removes
masking tape from a nearly complete mural. Students at the academy
worked under
the instruction of Anne Sphar, a teacher at the alternative
education school,
and Robbie Muse, a Roanoke artist. The students painted the mural to
brighten
the cafeteria area, which had bare walls and no windows. Many of the
students
had no prior art trainingi (Ran on C-1). color.