New Prairie High School’s (NPHS) halls are screaming blue and gold in celebration of Cougar pride! Over the course of the last few months New Prairie High School’s art club members have graciously devoted their time and energy into painting a tribute mural of their school mascot, the cougar, in the art hallway of the high school.
Carin Weston, a photography teacher at New Prairie High School, said the inspiration behind the cougar mural came from wanting to add some brightness to the walls of the high school
“With all of these renovations there are lots of gray colored walls, so we thought it would be a good idea to add color to them,” she said.
New Prairie High School has recently undergone many new renovations throughout the building, including a brand new auditorium, a new main entrance and numerous interior renovations.
When asked why they chose the location of the mural, the design seemed to play a huge part.
“It has three sections to it which makes it look balanced. Additionally, with the length we were able to do a big mural,” explained Weston.
The cougar mural is painted in the school's spirit colors, blue and gold. An overlay of geometric triangle patterns in multicolor shades of blues boldly bring color to the hallway showing support to the school's colors. The center of the mural is a golden cougar head which highlights the school mascot.
To the left of the mural in large gold letters reads COUGAR and to the right of the mural in large gold letters reads PRIDE. The mural is very large and extends between three walls which are each 10 feet tall and 15 feet wide.
Weston, along with other fellow staff members and students, all participated in the creating the cougar mural. Brian Jones, dedicated art teacher for NPHS, made huge attributes to the mural including being the creator and designer of the mural.
Emily Neil, a senior at NPHS, was very much dedicated to this project and came in to the school in between online school days to help on this huge project. Along with current art club students participating, there were also a number of NPHS alumni who came back to show their love and support for their school by helping with the mural.
The art club decided to use acrylic paint to make the mural.
“Mrs. [Shari] Rose and the administration office dealt with the materials. Her husband deals with paint so we got some really high quality paint which has been working very well.” Weston stated.
The cougar mural has been a work in progress and is not yet completed.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NPHS has been on a hybrid learning plan and school has not been in session as normal. Students only are in classes at the high school twice a week and working remote the other days.
“Hopefully the mural will be finished sometime this semester. It's been going pretty quick with everyone coming and helping work on it twice a week,” Weston said.
Moving forward, the art club plans to do more fun projects like this around the school. Many of the students have enjoyed the positive response from the community and they would like to fill as many empty walls as they can to create more school spirit.