Creative Creatures, 2024.
Students from Gumdale State School have recently collaborated with QLD College of Art & Design students in a workshop to discuss creativity, connectedness, and the important role that murals can play in creating inclusive spaces. Participants responded to a range of prompts using drawing to create visual material. Students worked excitedly and with lots of talking with each other about the characters they were drawing.
Through this process of making and working together we discovered visual details that collectively reveal a sense of the student community. We forged a connection with the young people in the group who also spoke excitedly about painting the mural. This excitement during the workshop and for the future artwork installation reflects a powerful sense of developing agency, pride, and ownership of the school environment.
Creative Creatures is a celebration of the power of imagination and creative play. By overlapping individual elements from the collaborative workshop, this patterned design represents a cross section of student contribution. Each student has contributed hand drawn characters capturing a community where discovery and learning are central. This painted work is an invitation to all students to embrace their imagination and learn through active play, looking and finding new characters as they enter for lessons in the Art room.
“We've created this really colourful and playful mural that will be welcoming students to the art room for years to come”
Paige CrichtonVisual Art Teacher, Gumdale State School