Symmes Junior High School


Gatineau (Aylmer), Québec

"Paysages du Québec"

On February 16, 17 and 18 I worked on a mural project at Symmes Junior High in Gatineau.

I’ve done several murals in this school and they are the proud results of a collaboration with art teacher Sylvia Bretzloff.

This time we worked on a mural called “Le Paysage du Quebec“.

Sylvia spent a long time researching images that she thought would be appropriate to represent Quebec, but I have to say we worked in a very spontaneous way together, selecting more or less on the spot what we thought would be right.

She would show me the images and I would draw them on the wall. As it progressed I thought it would be interesting to leave these images in their natural state as line drawings, without having to paint them afterwards.

The students were very well prepared for this project. As I drew the images of Quebec on the wall I also left big empty spaces to be filled with their work creating the effect of stain glass windows as frames for their paintings.

They chose to portray the beauty and the variety of the wild life of Quebec as well as some historical scenes and folktales.

The juxtaposition of these beautifully crafted paintings and the rawness of the drawings depicting Quebec, created a mural that exudes a more contemporary feel to it. I’m proud once more for what was accomplished in this collaboration with Sylvia.

I chose the song “Corrrigan – Laundry” from Au Tour du Flageolet by Daniel Roy. This is a fantastic album of traditional Quebec music worth listening to many times. I’d like to thank Daniel Roy and Mario Gervais, one of great musicians on this album, for allowing me to use this song on the video.

To all the students I say, “You guys are great, keep up the good work!!!”

Marcio Melo