Los Medanos College’s Professor Eric Sanchez is taking his Art 10 2D Design class outside the confines of this college for a mural project at a local garden. The Rivertown Garden Site, located next to Antioch High School, has worked previously with LMC’s ecology class and is working closely with Sanchez and his class to add some color to their barn. 

The Contra Costa Master Gardeners were present and acted as the “clients” for this project. It was them who reached out to Sanchez that gave Art 10 the opportunity to work at the garden site.

“The science teacher we worked with, one of our members asked her if she would have a referral because we were thinking about doing a paint job there,” said Master Gardener Jane Wirth. “We talked to [Sanchez] about treating it as if it was a job they might be applying to do or putting a concept in for some company.”

Wirth took the lead in the beginning, giving the students an in depth look at the Rivertown garden by introducing what they do there exactly and what’s grown here. As Wirth was talking, the students took to jotting down notes and key phrases to incorporate in their designs while also asking questions that would help narrow down on what’s an important factor. 

When it came time to start measuring, Sanchez split the class into groups and had each group work on a separate part, such as measuring the barn or talking with the master gardeners or even taking photos of the plants for inspiration. Despite being in different groups, the whole class was working together to create a full on mural for the barn in the back of the garden. Each group would then come together and put their minds on a design.

LMC student Jaden Peralta was part of the group that first measured the barn. Sadie Campbell and many others took tape measures and started calling out measurements, while Peralta drew a rough sketch of what the barn looked like along with its measurements to get a sense of scale.

“Right now we’re getting the base for our sketches to go into the design portion of it,” said Jessica Melendez. “We’re also trying to gather information to try to give ideas on what we’re going to sketch out.”

It’s a very stressful project for all students involved, and Peralta said that this is the first big one for Art 10.

“This is the first time that any of us had done this,” Perlta said.

For another group, they were tasked with striking up a conversation with the master gardeners to try and get a sense of what they liked and the process of planting. Kennywest Criddell and Anna Capperauld spoke with Wirth about the subjects of plants and what it takes to grow one for inspiration on designs they could do.

“We talked about the planting and how the soil grows underneath and how it needs to be acidic for berries,” said Criddell. “It was really cool because I’ve never planted before.”

Criddell plans on using the information to help the design team.

The final group was tasked with inspecting the barn tools and trying to see if these tools could be incorporated in the design plans in some way. Master gardener Lonni Cronin spoke with the groups about the tools and what they did and demonstrated its uses.

When it was time to wrap up, each team gathered together and left with two black sheets to help them get started on designing and then headed on their way. This project was a great way of introducing the process of working in a real life environment with clients and trying to design something that suits their taste. Wirth believes that despite their nervousness, they will pull off an amazing design because of how engaging they were to the process and with Sanchez as their teacher, they will definitely make LMC proud.