The plow project is a collaboration between the Riverside Local School district and Painesville Township since the Spring of 2016. The original idea of painting plows was brought up by a wife of a Painesville Township employee and the rest is history!
Students enrolled in Art 1-4 have the opportunity to submit designs created on template to their Art teachers. There is no theme required, so this leaves the students open to be as creative as possible! We work as a department to guide the students as to ways to work with such an interesting shape and the biggest hurdle is always the rubber flap that hangs down in the front. When the designs are complete we then pass the drawings onto the road department and Painesville Township Trustees. Once they have made their choices we then organize the top choices and form groups of 3-4 students depending on the complexity of the designs. As far as painting day, have worked outside of the school as well as at the Painesville Township Road Department Garage. We prefer the garage due to Ohio's unpredictable weather and how welcoming the township employees are. One year we had to actually cancel because of snow! The day of painting we use the paint provided by the township to paint anywhere from 6 to 11 cleaned and primed Painesville Township plows for an entire school day. We supplement the water based paint with acrylic paint and use a variety of brushes and sponges to create the compositions. Students have a chance to test their knowledge of color mixing as well as painting techniques on a very unique surface on a giant scale.
It is so wonderful for the art teachers to see the students work on this unconventional surface and show off all they have learned over the years in their art classes, from perspective to color theory, the students really have a chance to shine through this service project. The best part is that for an entire year they get to see their artwork travel around the district!
We look forward to this project every year, for Painesville Township is so wonderful to work with. We are very thankful for Trustee Josh Pennock and Service Director William Thompson for providing us a traveling canvas to work on and the opportunity to serve our community in a creative and fun way. We have such a great time and excited to do this project for years to come!
For information about those involved:
https://www.painesvilletwp.com/service/
https://www.painesvilletwp.com/trustees/
See these articles for more information from past years:
2026:
2025: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14Pq05iSYZzhgjbiIP3Ojhlwbqiw4Wi0I/view?usp=sharing
2023: News Herald-https://www.news-herald.com/2023/05/12/riverside-art-students-add-fresh-paintings-to-painesville-townships-snow-plows/?share=erpdprsoiv52n2wtsdvs
Channel 3-
News Herald: https://www.news-herald.com/2022/05/13/riverside-high-school-students-paint-painesville-township-snowplows/
(2020 cancelled due to the pandemic)