After two months of preparation and planning, Eric Sanchez’s Art 10 2D Design class are starting the final phase of their Mural project for the Rivertown Garden Site. For the next two weeks, Sanchez and his students will be working on painting art on the barn at the local garden located next to Antioch High School. It’s the culmination of the Los Medanos College students’ hard work and creativity finally coming to fruition.

Back on Oct. 6, Sanchez and his students visited the local garden to get measurements and a run down of how they want to approach this project. With support from the Contra Costa Master Gardeners and each other, the class each split into teams and tackled different aspects of the garden, from looking at tools for inspiration, speaking to the gardeners about the process of gardening and taking accurate measurements of the barn. During this time, LMC student Jaden Peralta expressed his nervousness about this project considering that this is the class’s first ever big assignment.

Fast forward two months after that, Peralta didn’t show hesitation like he said but instead confidence when it finally came time to painting. The extra preparation time proved to be useful as all the students who were present at the garden site to work on this project knew exactly what to do, even when Sanchez stepped out to return to LMC to grab extra supplies. Many of the tools that students utilized to paint came from LMC and were helpful in making the long painting sessions as comfortable as possible such as the scaffolding, courtesy of the Drama Department.

Using what they learned from their inspection of the garden site, they laid out a plan of how to approach painting their mural. LMC student Anna Capperauld shares that their inspection that occurred in Oct. allowed each team to come up with a design for the mural, which then the class voted on the most popular.

“We had a bunch of groups and then we picked the best design so now we’re doing that,” said Capperauld. “There’s five of us now so each one has picked a side.”

Capperauld said that each side of the barn will have a different design but will be related to gardening, with each design coming from a different team.

“We’re gonna have some people and some vegetables with one [design] that’s a watering can,” said Capperauld. “Other ones are gonna be more fruits and vegetables and stuff like that and then the other side is going to be more like a community side.”

Due to the nature of this project, it’s not possible for Sanchez’s class to work on this mural only during class time so students of Art 10 were given the opportunity to pick times Monday through Friday where they were free and could come work on the mural. He hopes that this flexibility for his students will allow them to finish the mural before the end of the semester, but has a feeling that bad weather could potentially delay this project from finishing in time. Despite that, Sanchez has full faith in his students’ ability to finish this mural.

“As a backup I have three students who can volunteer to help after the semester ends,” Sanchez said.

The hard work that LMC’s Art Department is putting into this mural is not going unnoticed and will no doubt wow the Rivertown Garden Site. The color, art and creativity that is being showcased through this project is a testament that the LMC community fosters very talented students and the community can’t wait to see the end result.