PROJECT ‘RAILSIDE’

Earlier this year Gary from the Railside Community Centre approached the Art Department of Matamata College in the hope to add a little eye catching colour to their building.

The challenge of creating a mural for the front of the building was then given to the two year 10 art classes. They needed to create a design that fitted within the structure of the building but illustrated to the public what the com- munity centre had on offer to help those in our community and to represent us as a town.

The students came up with some amazing individual designs before working in groups to finalise a proposal that was then presented to the Railside board. In all 7 concepts were presented and all showed the centre and town in a unique way, highlighting what was also important to them and their cultural connections to Matamata.
After great consideration a final design was chosen but then the task of creating this enormous mural was to begin. The students were divided into groups of two or three and were assigned one of the 15 panels. It was then their responsibility to paint the details in place. This was no small task, for some students it was hard to go from a small A4 size page to a large 2m x1.5m wooden panel.

It has taken us a while but we finally finished and to see the look on the students faces when they started to see each piece come together and panels put in order made it all worthwhile. They are very proud of themselves and so am I. I feel they have done an amazing job as this is only their second year of secondary school art learning and they definitely tried to put all the skills they have learnt into practice.

A big thankyou to the Railside Centre for this opportunity, the students were able to put this work towards a Level 1 standard worth 4 credits.

We encourage and welcome you to admire the mural and hope it adds a little bit of colour to our town for all to enjoy. Well done Year 10! -Jolene Rogerson, TIC Art, Matamata College