In just over three months, a gray, dingy wall at the Eagles’ Lodge in Washougal has been transformed into a colorful landscape.
Jamie Graninger, a 17-year-old Camas High School student, devoted more than 25 hours of volunteer time to complete the project. It includes an eagle, mountain and lake, with Sasquatch peeking up over the side.
Graninger’s dad, Wade, proposed the idea to her a few years ago.
“He was an Eagles member and was talking to some of the people there who were interested in having a mural painted,” she said. “He knows I am artistic so he suggested it and I thought, ‘Why not?'”
After going through a design process and receiving approval from the Eagles, Graninger finally began her project three months ago. The wall required the use of scaffolding.
“I worked one or two days a week to start with, but towards the end, I was working four or five days,” she said. “It was a pretty big project. It was truly a service project in the sense that we purchased the paint and paid for everything. We really just wanted to help out.”
Graninger’s best friend, Anne Tobin, helped design the mural and boyfriend Sam Reviea assisted with painting.
Ron Hawkins, past president of the Eagles Club, noted that the mural has vastly improved the outdoor area.
“We wanted people to see what they would if the building wasn’t here,” he said. “It was nice of her to paint the building, but to see that talent she had and how nice it turned out was great.”
Graninger was planning to incorporate the mural into her senior project at CHS, but the rules were recently changed so that the mural project cannot be used toward the requirement, as the project needs to be completed during the school year.
“I found this out right before starting the project, but I had committed to it so I wanted to get it done,” she said.
When Graninger completed the project last month, she described the feeling as “amazing.”
“I finished, signed my name and the date, and looked at it,” she said. “It was a great feeling.”
Now that the mural is complete, Hawkins is hoping to get the front of the building painted as well.
“I would like to have something created that would look as downtown did a century ago,” Hawkins said.
