Post-It Artwork Brings Holiday Cheer to GCHS

Ella Drew Bourget

Mr. Lanham and his team of students worked for at least 45 hours to construct the holiday scene made of post its for the library windows.

Lusby was pleased with Lanham’s choice of a postiit note project.  She said, “This idea was the perfect holiday décor for the library windows, which can be seen from the other end of our building!  I’m always impressed with Mr. Lanham’s creativity and his ability to make learning so much fun!”

The creation required many more steps than most people would anticipate.  Lanham couldn’t just stick post-it notes on the window; he had to design and measure out all of the post-its to fit just right. He explained the process he used to build his design. “I measured all of the windows, and then made a grid in Photoshop, and then imported that grid into a drawing program where I drew all of the post-its.”

While the process was rather easy, Lanham did come across one small obstacle. He said, “Math is hard for me, so I had to figure out all of the window sizes and divide them by post-it note widths, and it took a little bit of math. But other than that it turned out okay.”

Lanham spent about 45 hours on his project and couldn’t have done it all on his own. He decided to use some students from his classes to help. He said, “I spent a couple hours designing it and laying it all out, and then of course, I had to order all the post-its. Mrs. Lusby was key to all of that.” He then had students from his Art II class help build the design.

Overall Lanham is happy with how the project turned out. He said, “I was very pleased with it. I thought it was cool, and I liked the richness of the colors. I thought the post its looked nice up there, and I liked the scale of it. It was a big thing, and I was pleased at how visible it is on the outside. The wreath last year didn’t show up as well as I wanted it to, but this one really pops.”

Students at Great Crossing are also enjoying this festive presentation. Kennedy Harrison, a sophomore said, “I like it because it is creative and fun. It also shows character in our school and how different ideas people have can come to life.”

Lanham will retire in May, so he will not be creating any more Christmas art for students.  However, he indicated his replacement may like to take on future projects.  He said, “I’m gonna leave the grid and things I created on this one for the next art teacher if they want to do this next year. I thought it might be kind of cool to spray snow on the window and you draw on the snow. That may be a cool project too.”