By By ERIN VER BERKMOES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - A group of students at Niles Senior High School are painting their school's mascot with pride.
Four students from the school's art club and Lisetta Zahm's drawing class have taken on the project of painting a large mural of a Viking ship.
The idea came about as the group had wanted to create a long standing piece of art in the school for quite some time.
The students were given a large piece of blank wall near the main office of the school to use as their canvas.
Over the past two weeks, students Billy Gallegos, Nick Guajardo, Andrew Karsten and Kristin Lamarre conducted research to find just the right Viking ship to use for their sketch. They recently began work on the pencil sketch of the boat.
Gallegos is working on creating a Viking character which will be painted inside the ship.
Karsten agreed with Guajardo that it will be exciting to return to the school for the 20-year class reunion and see the mural that he worked on and have his name on the wall forever.
Once the students have gotten everything sketched the way they like, they will begin to paint the mural.
The four students working on the project said they hope the mural of the school's mascot will evoke a sense of pride and appreciation in the student body.