Local Artist Hosts Collaborative Coloring Book Mural At Sunken Gardens

Artist Markus Puskar has announced the unveiling of his Coloring Book Mural on Thursday, Aug. 4, with a community coloring event from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Sunken Gardens basketball court (9th Avenue between Speer Boulevard and Elati Street).

Families, neighbors, Denver residents and visitors of all ages are invited to join their community to color-in a black and white mural using chalk, contributing colors to an array of shapes and forms and enlivening the Sunken Gardens basketball court even further. This family-friendly event is free and open to all.

The Coloring Book Mural event is an opportunity for people in the neighborhood to participate in collective creativity, and to develop relationships with one another through art. This event and others like it (dates to be announced) encourage people to contribute to the art in their community, not merely digest it. The mural will change with each iteration of coloring events, leaving a unique imprint from each of its participants.

"What I am most interested to see is how different people respond to the prompt of coloring. I have been so pleasantly surprised to see how people coloring break the rules of "coloring within the lines" and add their own shapes and forms to the existing mural; it completely transforms the work," said Markus Puskar, the painter of the mural.

This mural and event are not the first of their kind. In 2019, Puskar hosted a similar coloring book event at his Urban Arts Fund mural on the Cherry Creek and the result was a black and white mural transformed into a vibrant kaleidoscope. A time-lapse video of the 2019 experience is available at https://vimeo.com/381049488.

This project is supported by Denver Arts & Venues through a P.S. You Are Here Grant.

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