East Hills MS art teacher Carla Majczan is in the process of creating a large mural installation for the new DaVinci Center in Allentown.

After the mosaic Hobart stair mural in South Bethlehem, Majczan has found many more mural art opportunities to apply for.

“People know I’m not a social media person,” she said, “so my friends share opportunities that they see posted and tell me about them to possibly go for. A friend told me about this (the DaVinci Center) opportunity. I saw it and decided to go for it.” Majczan submitted a design concept to the DaVinci Center.

“When I showed the entire group my final design, Norberto (Dominguez, community engagement liaison for the DaVinci Center), said something about how I did a good job having a balance between the students’ artwork and my own in the design.”

Majczan does some of the painting at home, but the larger pieces are worked on at the Lehigh Valley Children’s Center on Chew Street.

“The school has been really good,” she said. “They provided magnetic wall strips for the paper panels to hang from.” The school also provided long, waist high tables so the artist can work with less strain on her back when painting the lower parts of the panels. Majczan started with smaller designs, which she printed and works from to create the larger paintings.

Majczan provided full lesson plans for the LVCC classrooms.

“Then they sent me the artwork created from those lessons in huge boxes,” she explained. “I sorted through the boxes and used the students’ creations throughout the design. I mixed their artwork with my own vision to have a mixture of my art and theirs.” She incorporated some of the students’ art in her mural; however, being an artist who usually uses Realism, she decided the best way for her to bring more of herself as an artist into the design was to bring likenesses of the students in the LVCC into the mural. Majczan said contacted the LVCC and requested likenesses of the kids.

Three hundred photos were submitted by the teachers at LVCC.

After reviewing all of them, Majczan narrowed it down to 30 or 40, and asked those children to have photos taken in poses she would need for her vision. From the resulting photos, Majczan selected 16 photos for the final design.

The central feature of the mural will be a child with colorful wings stretching out to her sides. Parents will be able to photograph their own children standing in front of the wings.

Much of the mural depicts children playing on grassy slopes.

“The mixture of the children with what they have created is what creates the whimsy effect I think,” she said. “After painting all that grass, I needed to see more colors.”

She said her favorite part is painting the children’s clothing which takes about two hours to paint two small shirts.

Majczan works on the mural every day after work for about 4 to 6 hours and often on the weekends.

“In the beginning, I thought I would keep track of my time, but it’s hundreds of hours,” she said.

Her family likes to see pictures of her progress. She sends her mom pictures of every step she finished.

“I ask my mom specifically for her opinion,” Majczan said. “She’s like me – honest – so I know I’m getting a real critique and she’s usually right with what she questions or sees and that has always made me a better artist.”

There is no set date for completion of the mural but once the paintings are finished, they will be installed on panels at the site. Majczan will add a border. Then the mural will need to be sealed.

She has a self-imposed deadline of having it completed in time for the 16th annual Blues, Brews & Barbecue Festival in downtown Allentown June 22. But this will depend on the timing of both the completion of the painting and the installer’s schedule.