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Art Honor Society expands mural project Club repurposes empty spaces on school walls by painting murals for classrooms Joshua Krob
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Staff Reporter
viedo has no shortage of beautiful local art, from elaborate paintings in Artistic Hand Gallery & Studio to the detailed mural in Round Lake Park. Among the growing number of attractions that can be seen all over Oviedo, many great pieces catch eyes. However, the National Art Honors Society has created on-campus projects to rival those in the community. While walking around campus, students are likely to see at least one of the multiple NAHS murals, located in PLATO instructor Mike Sindone’s room, above the chorus room, and in the cafeteria. Art is not just limited to these three locations: there are also several planned art exhibits outside of art teacher Omar Otero and theater teacher Jamaal Solomon’s classrooms. The existing murals are all different artistic takes on huskies, with the only exception being the large mural in the lunchroom, which displays “Class of 2021” in a calligraphy style. NAHS meets every other week for an hour in Otero’s room, 7-102. The next meeting will take place after Thanksgiving break. Students are able to work on their projects at meetings, which only take place once a month for two
A NEW LOOK The National Art Honor Society has several murals throughout campus, including one in the PLATO lab, 2-110. Students hand-painted the murals, which generally feature a husky theme, that can be found in different classrooms and labs. photo by Alexis Madlang
hours. Students make the most of their time at these meetings, honing their art skills by participating in group painting projects. For freshman Dylani Weerackoon, the small details are very important in his projects. “I’ve definitely focused on making things more neat and orderly. Especially when you’re painting on the wall, you want stuff to look really sharp and clean. Sometimes that means you put extra time into what you’re working on,
but that’s worth it,” Weerackoon said. The mural painting process begins with a preplan, when students bounce ideas off of one another and decide what they want to work on. They then move on to a small drawing of the planned mural, getting it checked by the teacher who requested it before they ever touch a school wall. After a careful checking process to make sure the drawing and painting match, the mural
is ready for display. “We draw [a rough draft] out, and then we discuss the ideas,” Otero said. “The entire thing really brings out the best ideas in people.” Otero gives NAHS students freedom to create what they want for murals around campus, as long as it pleases the customer. “I don’t want to come up with the idea because I want it to be a ‘them’ thing,” Otero said.
said. “The lunch session was also super cool since we got to talk to other schools about their yearbooks and newspapers and how they were handling all the changes this year.” Each student signed up for three sessions at the Friday workshop, and Wilkerson favored sessions that pertained to her publication. Wilkerson’s personal favorite session was “What’s the Extra Mile: From Good to Great” because the organizer of the session was able to give good advice on how to overcome the struggles of being on yearbook staff. Before sessions began, the day started off with award announcements, which Hagerty dominated, winning six of the eight awards. Last year, all the FSPA awards were only announced online, so being there to win in person was a big improvement.
“Being able to hear about the wins in person is just so different and so much more exciting than it is over a computer,” BluePrint online editor Skyler Glenn said. “It’s just an awesome feeling to know that we’re doing a good job and I was really happy to hear that some of our first year staffers were winning awards.” Glenn taught a session with editor-in-chief Jaye Herrera called “The Editing Process,” in which they gave an overview of the editing process a good publication should have. “It’s been a learning process for us so it wasn’t easy to come up with,” Glenn said. “We did the session to help other schools figure out how to do an editing process, because that’s definitely one of the most difficult things to figure out.” On top of that, newspaper and yearbook
adviser Brit Taylor taught a session called “Get in my Face,” which focused on strategies for face-to-face interviews after a year of interviews by email and social media. Despite having a successful first FSPA in-person workshop after two years of being virtual, the turnout was limited by Daytona State College rules that allowed a maximum of 12 students per school, and the maximum number of people in a session room to 13. “I think the atmosphere wasn’t quite like it’s been in the past because we’ve had 300 to 400 people where we have a big auditorium with a keynote speaker,” Taylor said. “We’re not there yet, but I think for what this year is and the limitations we have, it was pretty good, in terms of having enough space and being able to spread out.”
Journalism students attend district workshop Zahra Ateeq
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Staff Reporter
n a Daytona State College classroom on a Friday morning, students learned how to “Adapt Like a Pro” from Oviedo adviser Ben Langevin, who discussed podcasts and musicals in a 50-minute session. This and other sessions took place at the Florida Scholastic Press Association in a workshop on Friday, Oct. 29. Schools from Seminole, Volusia, Polk and Brevard counties participated— leading to a turnout of 91 students. This was the first in-person FSPA workshop since 2019, and many students were excited to be back in person. “Being in person felt more real and personal,” yearbook editor Sarena Wilkerson
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