I was recently contacted by Mr. Fleming, a fifth grade teacher in South Carolina who wished to have a graphic made — a BIG one that would fit on his classroom door.
He has taught the same group since third grade, if I understood correctly, and works hard to encourage and stay connected with the students.
Art supplies took a bit of extra effort, finding paper large enough that would take some watercolor (and be affordable) and be rolled up for mailing. And colors that would not require water saturation, just enough to fill in fairly consistently. That allowed me to take the budget down to a level he could justify.
(I settled on a media new to me: Water Soluble Wax Pastels. Really flexible and worked out fine in this application. I could color in the AWESOME letters, for instance, just a light pigment, then spray that surface with water via an old sinus spray bottle — hey, don’t laugh — and tweak it with a brush. Done! Quick and effective. The paper warped a bit with all the water needed in flesh areas, but was way affordable and worked fine. The shirt would have needed way too much water for a solid color, so the stripes with brush marker were a better choice. Getting the paper edges to match the stripes was a bit iffy!)
