Children's Rainforest

The Rainforest Art Festival at McKinley Elementary School last Thursday was a fabulous success with the “Enchanted Desert” mural and doorway being unveiled for the world to see. The students did a remarkable job, working in ceramics, mosaic and acrylic. We are especially proud of their amazing tile designs. Through a partnership with the El Centro Elementary School District and Rabobank, N. A., students participated in every phase of the design and fabrication of this outstanding work of art.

Principal, Karla Sigmond was thrilled with results. She participated in the design of the “hacienda style” entry, and marveled at how much it transformed her school. At hand to release the drapes were city councilman Jon Edney with help from branch manager of Rabobank El Centro, Randy Taylor and Brawley managerVictor Nava along with superintendent Dr. Robert Pletka and the banks regional vice president, Leo Fletes.

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Our next Rainforest Art Project of Imperial classes will be held at the fabulous Imperial County Fair, starting next Friday.

Congratulations to Jean Stroud and Rita Wilson for their fantastic bus stop shelter designs which will be assembled at our booth during the fair.

We have a great location, right next to our new sponsor Rabobank in the Ag Building.

We will be seeking all the help we can get from our students, so please advise me of the hours that you can help.  So far, in addition to the bus stop mosaics (8 panels), there will be coloring books and wood animal cutout painting for the kids.

The theme of our booth is “Just Imagine” Let me know what you think.

Regards,

Dan

Designed by Jean Stroud and Rita Wilson

City of Imperial

We are continuing our work on the “Papa” A. Eager Park Sign. It is a project that has turned out to be more complex than originally planned because of the techniques that we decided to use. At first we were going to use 1″ x 1″ stained glass tiles (also known as Tesserae), but we decided that a custom rectangular shape gives a more dynamic sense of flow to the wave theme. We have spent a great deal of time making these custom tesserae and it is well worth the extra effort, with the wave taking on a beautiful and unique appearance.

Not only did we change the shape of the tesserae, but staying true to our Rainforest ways, we decided to customize the mosaic even further by mixing a couple of  different “Opus” techniques. Opus is the traditional term for the way that we lay down the tesserae. In the “Papa” A. Eager Park Sign we are using a modified version of what is traditionally known as “Opus Musivum” which is when we place the rectangular or square tesserae in rows that help highlight and show movement. We have also decided to use the “Opus Palladianum” which is when we place irregular tesserae in an irregular pattern; also known as “crazy paving”.

If you would like to volunteer working on the sign on Fridays please call Dan at 619-778-4145.