Vindicator staff photo / R. Michael Semple .... Hubbard High School art student and soccer player Leighton Komlanc, 16, paints a quotation on a hallway wall at Fairhaven School in Niles as part of an art project Tuesday morning. The Hubbard students brainstormed ideas during the school year on mural work and other artwork for various areas of the school, including the cafeteria, hallway walls, main office and conference rooms. Their teacher, Josh MacMillan, went to Fairhaven on Monday to do some prep work.

NILES — The Hubbard High School girls soccer team spent Tuesday morning creating vibrant works of art that enlivened Fairhaven School in Niles.

Their approach was similar to paint by numbers — the popular method to make art by filling in predetermined spaces with colors.

“I came in yesterday and I sketched out the walls in the conference room, cafeteria and the hallway from the offices,” said Josh MacMillan, Hubbard High School art teacher and girls varsity soccer coach.

MacMillan provided the paint and wrote on the walls the colors for the students to fill in to produce the image. The hallway featured the quote, “Be Curious Not Judgmental.” The line has been popularized by the former TV series “Ted Lasso,” which was about a professional soccer team.

Some of the images on the cafeteria mural included the sky and clouds as well as a rural scene with tall stalks of corn and a field. As they created their murals, the varsity girls soccer team viewed this as a fun event before classes start, a way to give back and a team-bonding activity.

For junior Ainsley Wagner, this was not the first art project that she participated in for Fairhaven School.

“When I was a freshman, I painted the canvas (that included the words) ‘I can be a doctor,'” she said. It hangs on the wall of the classroom hallway.

Other paintings in that corridor have such phrases as “I Can Be a Teacher,” “I Can Be Anything,” “I Can Grow,” “I Can Be Myself” and “I Can Choose Joy.” Those paintings were created using bright colors and showing children with different skin tones. According to MacMillan, they were created as a request by Fairhaven Principal Sandy Kernan, who is now retired, to honor her parents.

Tuesday’s art project was a collaboration between Hubbard High School and Fairhaven School with the theme of joy and use of bright colors.

“Josh MacMillan and I bounced ideas around for the wall project,” said Michelle Ocilka-Yeckle, current Fairhaven principal.

She views the artworks as ways to brighten the rooms for students and staff.

Fairhaven school secretary Shannon Hodge asked for a painting to be created on the bare wall above her desk.

“He asked me what my favorite color is, which is green,” Hodge said.

MacMillan painted a bulldog, the school mascot, to fill the empty wall.

In the process of working on a ribbon-like drawing in the staff conference room, one of the students painted a color that was different than the one that was labeled on the wall.

MacMillan calmly eased her feelings by philosophically pointing out, “You can’t mess up paint. You can always make something else.”

Joy is a constant theme throughout the school, and the murals created by the Hubbard students spread joy.

“It is a visual reminder to students and staff to promote positivity and feel joy,” Ocilka-Yeckle said.