News Release

Santa Ana College Student Artists Paint Behr Paint Headquarters

Student's artwork selected to be featured in large wall mural

(Santa Ana, CA) - Ten Santa Ana College (SAC) students participated in a unique seven-week Behr Paint internship over the summer, painting two new murals at the Behr Paint headquarters in Santa Ana, with one student’s artwork chosen to be featured.

In spring, Behr Vice Presidents Richard Maus and Cindy Germain reached out to SAC about the company’s plan to move into a new building in the fall of 2018 and combine all of its operations into one location. By using Behr’s existing internship program, SAC students were hired full-time at $15 an hour to complete the project.

As part of the project, SAC students submitted drawings and presented their ideas to H. Hendy and Behr, with student Rithyra Bin’s design selected as the winner. Bin’s mural depicts the history of Behr paint and includes a portrait of its founder, Otho Behr, Jr.

Work began in July and throughout the process students learned professional design practices and skills, worked with professional design firms and architects as clients, practiced safety standards while operating on high scaffolding within an active construction zone, utilized airbrush and spray-gun painting techniques, use gradients on a large scale, created the illusion of neon light in a painting and rendered new textures to complete the mural.

Although the internship originally included the painting of only one wall, the students were provided the opportunity to paint three walls and complete an additional mural of the Behr paint logo on a colorful squared background.

Bin’s team, which completed the project two days ahead of schedule, was supervised by SAC Professor Darren Hostetter and included Grecia Cordova, Chris Davilla, Alberto Donjuan Jr., Crisselle Mendiola, Ranzen Ocampo, Katie Olson, Jason (JP) Pereira, Danny Ramirez, Medardo Sandoval and former SAC student Renee Mederazo.

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About Santa Ana College
Santa Ana College (SAC), which turned 100 years old in 2015, serves about 18,000 students each semester at its main campus in Santa Ana. The college prepares students for transfer to four-year institutions, provides invaluable workforce training, and customized training for business and industry. In addition, another 11,000 students are served through the college’s School of Continuing Education located at Centennial Education Center. Ranked as one of the nation’s top two-year colleges awarding associate degrees to Latino and Asian students, the college is also recognized throughout the state for its comprehensive workforce training programs for nurses, firefighters, law enforcement and other medical personnel. SAC is one of two comprehensive colleges under the auspices of the Rancho Santiago Community College District.

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Contact: Melissa Utsuki

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