What an awesome achievement for Grand Prairie Independent School District 8th grader Sydney Merlau, daughter of Chelle Meyers Merlau! Her “Take Flight” artwork, which celebrates monarch butterflies and the annual Flight of the Monarch Festival hosted by the Grand Prairie Parks, Arts & Recreation Department was one of the 20 commissions for the City of Grand Prairie – Municipal Government Traffic Signal Box Public Art Project.
Sharon Miller, her art teacher at the Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy, said Sydney spent more than 60 hours hand-drawing more than 200 unique butterflies and intentionally arranging them in a tessellated pattern (an arrangement of shapes closely fitted together, especially of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping). Her artwork is reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s artwork.
Subsequently, Sydney worked with Centerline Supply’s graphic artist, Carl Crenshaw, to convert her pencil drawing into a crisp and beautiful illustration that was printed on a special UV protective vinyl and wrapped on the TSB on Corn Valley at Warrior Trail by South Grand Prairie High School.
Congratulations, Sydney, on a job well done! Check out this great video showing more about the project.
