​BLAIR-TAYLOR NATURE CASE
My name is Wava Jacobchick.
I was the artist that painted the backdrop for the original nature case (see above) that was in the Blair Taylor Elementary School back in 2001. The contents of the old nature case, the animals and the scenery were disassembled and carefully stored when the school was sold in 2015, but the background was unable to be moved. I cut apart sections of the drywall mural (check them out on the photos page) and framed them as individual paintings. The Blair Public Library was kind enough to show the group and help raffle them off to start the fund for the new nature case that will be created at the new Blair Taylor United Campus.
Our new area will be directly across from the library and the main entrance to the school. The area is quite a lot bigger, 14' tall by 44' long. The builders defined a curved display area that I can use for our new display. Many great suggestions were given about what to do with the new space and I wanted to come up with an idea that would explore the 3-D nature of the case, looking into and underneath the surfaces. I also wanted to make this nature case a more educational exhibit to engage the kids more. I could see it in my head, but my sketches fell flat. I needed a more comprehensive plan to work from than a sketch would provide, so I created a scale model as a visual blueprint for the new nature case. (See this also on the photos page) The scale is one inch equaling one foot of the real area. The new nature case with have more elaborate, detailed structures built into it as I will create a rock cliff, a river bank, a pond with fish and a beaver hut and also a forest area. To make this nature case more educational, we will be able to see within structures from the inside of trees to different soil levels and what might be there, into dens and what the inside of a beaver hut contains, as well as an underwater look into a pond.
While the model helped me work out the structural details of where our animals would "live", I was still feeling unsure of how to start. I realized I could never paint that large of an area based on the painting I used in the model. I needed to work out the layout of all the small (relatively speaking) details. So I laid the background out on five large canvasses and got busy painting. I have just finished this series. They are also to scale, one foot equals 4 feet. Each canvas is 24" X 36". Together they are about 1/4 the size of the actual area. (I've pieced together photos of the 5 to make the image on the background mural page) I plan on using these as reference to paint the wall.
I hope to complete the mural portion of this project by the time the kids come back to school in the fall of 2016. At that point, I'd like to throw a reception and celebrate the completion of the first half of the nature case. Then take a deep breath and get busy on building the structures, rock walls, beaver dams, trees and dens!
