Design.
Composition.
Tone.
Form.
Symmetry.
Balance.
More red...
And a little more red...
Blue blue blue blue
Blue blue blue blue
(points if you can name that musical...)
And so, that's how the creation of the world began.
Well, actually it started with a coat of primer, on an empty wall in the local Children's Library.
We taped out some stuff, painted an Ocean blue, and then using a projector, we sketched the world onto the wall.
And then, the fun began. Country by country, matching it up to a PCV-produced handbook, deciding which country should be which color. Defining the borders, filling in the middle (I can say more than once we did have to re-negotiate some territories. Due to a pixelated projection, there were more than a few disputed areas.)
Some kids had really never painted before, so we had to go step by step with them, how to hold a brush, how to get the right amount of paint. But they have turned out to be great little artists, with quite the curiosity for geography. Before letting any of them paint, they had to identify which country they were painting, and sometimes even the capitals!
Each day, we took a progress shot...
And each day, more and more kids showed up. If you paint it, they will come...
The World Map Project is a thing many volunteers do around PC countries, but as this was the first one in Azerbaijan (what what!!), we wanted to make ours special. Around the sides, we have cities and the distance to them from Balaken, and along the top we listed several different cities and the time differences from Balaken.
And of course, we had to put the Peace Corps Azerbaijan logo...
Finally, complete!!
Looks good? I think our next one will be a more freeform mural...we've tapped the talent, let's let it loose!
1 comments:
They have a map like this painted on the wall in the assembly hall at Shanti Bhavan!
Post a Comment