TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1998

Students have knack for color

By Wes Woods

On-Line Forty-Niner

 

With a blank canvas of 10,000 square feet, 11 Cal State Long Beach mural students and one instructor with 12 different ideas needed to make a decision.

What should the enormous exterior of the Veterans Administration Health Care System Building project?

And, under the guidance of instructor Jen Grey and some lucky patrons who voiced their opinions, the Art 333 class came up with "Sea Fun."

The project started at the begining of the semester and is near completion, waiting on a few jovial animals to be colored in.

Featuring a gigantic bright yellow submarine with its tongue dangling out of its mouth, which wraps around the exterior, the entire project is incredible.

Inside the smiling submarine rest various beaming animals, including a smiling lion with a purple butterfly on its nose, a green alligator who joyfully holds its tummy and a black and white polka-dotted cow looking through a telescope.

Another animal, an immense octopus, looks at visitors while holding numbers. Underneath are beaming crabs who hold various letters of the alphabet.

"Each [animal] was a variation of [the 'Sea Fun'] theme," Patrick Souza, a senior in illustration said. "We let the patrons choose [what design they wanted] and they liked the submarine. Then, we put our own special characters in there."

"[It started with Etienne Garabay's original drawings] and incorporated the other designs which made everyone part of the mural," Heather Haines-Eckels, junior art major, said.

"The submarine was the first idea in my mind," Garabay, a junior in pre-graphic design, said.

Students agreed that Grey also contributed a great deal to the project.

"She was not always here, but ... she tells you to change this or that," Linnea Lehman, senior in fine arts, said.

"She's amazing. She knows her way around ... we had perfect direction," Souza said.

"Sea Fun" was painstakingly worked on three times a week and several hours each day, Haines-Eckels said.

"Preparation and drawings were the boring, tedious part," Lehman said. "[However ] seeing it progress made you want to work harder."

Class members were impressed with each others' efforts.

Haines-Eckels said it was interesting to see how the team worked together and all the work incorporated into one piece.

"These people were very unselfish about their design proposals. Everyone had a few images that they liked a lot and that appeared in everyone's proposal," Grey said.