Our Lady of Victory Primary School, Chelsea (p1)         [page 2][page 3]
Five mosaic murals celebrating the pupils' broad world-wide heritage and the ecology of the world, linking in with the Natural History Museum and the Chelsea Physic Garden
The aim of the mosaic is to beautify our playground and to celebrate our artistic talents, as well as draw attention to the amazing world of nature and the fragility of the worlds eco-systems. Some planting will encourage butterflies and other pollinating insects into or playground and to help the bio-diversity of our part of London.

Our mural project is extremely exciting. We were lucky to get half the funding from the National Lottery Awards for All, raised by the artists for us. Clem Riches, Catherine Clark, Leona Matuszczak and Jill Tattersall are the other artists working with us, assisted by three wonderful volunteers, Sunita, Jyotika and Ruta. The volunteers are Part 1 Qualified Architects (this means they have completed their first 3 years of their architecture qualification). While they are looking for placements they have been helping out generously on Artyface projects.

In the Autumn Term 2009 classes 1-6 went drawing at either the Wildlife Garden at the Natural History Museum and at the Physic Garden in Chelsea, or if they were lucky, at both! Maud and the other artists and assistants, helped by many parents and teachers, explained the importance of looking and "listening" to what you see to help you when you draw. We should learn about what we are drawing through looking at and studying it.
We are lucky to have such interesting places to visit in our area. We were also very lucky as the weather was perfect on our trips out to draw, we had a sunny Autumn. Pencils were not used, only black pens which was a challenge as we couldn't rub anything out but it meant we had to look carefully before we made any marks. Also it makes it easier for the drawing to be copied for the designs.
Catherine and volunteers prepare pupils for their mission drawing inspiration from the Wildlife Garden at the NHM.
Below: drawing animals from different continents and pollenating insects.
The artists chose many of our drawings and collaged them into the design for our mural. The mural is going to be a mosaic, or rather lots of mosaics! There will be 5 water drop shapes, or paisley shapes: one to represent 5 continents and also to represent all the countries that the pupils from Our Lady of Victories Roman Catholic Primary School come from.

Maud was so excited to discover the Guilded Canopy, which is a beautiful ceiling in the Natural History Museum that many people have never noticed. The ceiling mural depicts plants from around the world, which is part of what our project is about. Our mural is going to represent the different countries the children come from as well as be an environmental and ecological mural. Inside each continent design is a different shape, either a hexagon or a pentagon or octagon and so on. In the border of this shape is a design taken from our drawings of the ceiling, chosen as it is representative of the continent.
Below: the future sites for the mosaics.
Click to go to [page 2] [page 3]