Oviedo has no shortage of beautiful local art, from elaborate paintings in Artistic Hand Gallery & Studio to the detailed mural in Round Lake Park, but the National Art Honors Society has created on-campus projects to rival these pieces.

Walking around campus, students are likely to see at least one of the NAHS murals, located in Mr. Sindone’s room, above the chorus room and in the cafeteria. There are also some planned works outside of art teacher Omar Otero’s and theater teacher Jamaal Solomon’s classrooms. The existing murals are all of huskies, with the exception of the one in the lunchroom, being words saying “Class of 2022”

NAHS meets every other week for an hour in Otero’s room, (7-102). The next meeting is on Nov. 12. However, students are only able to work on their projects once a month for two hours. 

At these meetings, attendees hone their art skills by participating in group painting projects. 

“I’ve definitely focused on making things a little bit more neat and orderly. Especially when you’re painting on the wall, you want stuff to look really sharp and clean,” freshman Dynali Weerackoon said.

The mural painting process begins with the pre-plan, before moving on to the small drawing of the planned mural, getting it checked by the teacher who requested it before even starting the painting. After careful work to make sure the small drawing and full size painting match, the mural is ready for display.  

“We draw [a rough draft] out, we’ll sit down and we draw them out, and then we discuss the ideas,” Otero said. 

Otero gives members the ultimate freedom to do what they want for these murals, as long as it pleases the customer. 

“I don’t want to come up with the idea because I want it to be a ‘them’ thing. So I’ll have them come up with the idea,” Otero said.