The Way It Began Depicted By MCC Art Students

Imagine going back into time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth instead of humans and when mass extinctions took place.

To creatively illustrate what took place on earth millions of years ago, three McHenry County College art students and their instructor created a 5- by 20-foot mural titled “The Earth through Time” that depicts the evolution of earth from the formation of the moon to the present day.

The long, narrow mural includes blue, green and brown hues and contains images of prehistoric life as well as the Geologic Time Scale.

The mural took four months to complete and was created by McHenry County College art students Emily Regelin and Jessica Von Eyser of Marengo and Kirsten Williams of Crystal Lake.  Instructor of Art, Mark Arctander oversaw the artists and their collaboration with Kate Kramer, instructor of Earth Science and Geology. 

The mural, which is located in the hallway near Room A227, is packed with visual information and will be used as a teaching aide in earth science courses.

The students worked between school and work commitments to complete the large painting on five canvas panels during the Fall 2011 Semester.

“This was a wonderful experience for the students, who did everything from building the supports to designing and painting this large scale work,” Arctander said.  “We have amazing art students at MCC and I’m lucky to be able to work with them on a daily basis,” he added. 

“In class, it is difficult for students to grasp how long 4.6 billion years really is,” Kramer said. “The mural is a great way to show students geologic time. The students worked tirelessly on it and I think that shows,” she added.

This project is the fourth educationally-based large scale painting that Arctander has worked on with MCC students. Three of the works are located at MCC, including a 6- by 18-foot visual history of McHenry County and another is a timeline related to mathematics from pre-history to today.

 An additional historical representation of the county measuring 6- by 18-foot is displayed at the McHenry County Courthouse in Woodstock.