Every November, two of our teachers, Mrs. Barnett, and Ms. Adams, carefully select students to take part in window painting at various local business in downtown Clearfield. I was thrilled to be chosen for the second year in a row to join this fun event. My group, consisting of Hannah Buck, Lily Steele, Adlynn Bell, Samantha Gardner, and myself, was assigned to paint the windows of Spanky’s Courthouse Café on North 3rd Street. This popular restaurant, always bustling with hungry customers, had its owner, Heather Inguagiato, select a Grinch theme for this year’s decorations and provided us with some designs for each window.Each group member took turns choosing which window they wanted to paint and created the necessary sketches. All the selected students gathered in Grice’s parking lot at 8:30 AM on November 21st to collect their supplies and head to their assigned businesses.
For my window, I decided to paint Max, the Grinch’s dog, with antlers tied to his head, just like in the movie. The process was not without its challenges. The windows were very cold so my tape did not want to stick to the window causing my sketch to keep falling. Also, the paint was not drying fast enough for my design so I had a lot of smearing. I started with his eyes, mouth, and antlers before finishing with his paws and hair. It took a couple hours to completely paint Max including the breaks for paint to dry and mixing colors. In addition to my window, I also helped in painting a Christmas light border on another one of our windows so the process would move faster.
Around 12:30, we took a short lunch break and enjoyed some delicious food from the restaurant. The staff was incredibly kind throughout the entire process and brought us a large plate of homemade cookies and brownies along with anything that we needed. As 2 PM approached, we began to clean up our supplies and wipe away extra paint left behind. The group took pictures of our finished windows and headed to the Santa House to check in with the teachers and load our supplies back into the van before being dismissed for the day.
The experience was thrilling and I recommend doing it if the opportunity is there. Although it was stressful at times, the group had plenty of fun during the day. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication for just a couple hours of work, but it’s worth it in the end.
