BIC Turns More Than 1,690 Learners’ Artwork Into Colourful School Murals

There is something quite satisfying about seeing your own work displayed somewhere for everyone to see. For a primary school learner, however, spotting a piece of artwork they created weeks earlier as part of a huge mural on their school wall is likely to feel a little more special.

This August, more than 1,690 learners across four Gauteng primary schools are seeing their individual artworks brought together as large-scale permanent murals as part of BIC South Africa’s 2026 "Let Your Colour Out" campaign.

The campaign invited learners to approach colouring without worrying too much about getting things “right”. Rather than following a prescribed colour palette or trying to stay neatly within the lines, learners were encouraged to make their sections their own, using BIC colouring pencils, crayons, markers and pens.

Each child was given a section of a much larger design, but there was no picture to copy and no expectation that one learner’s artwork should look like the next. The result was hundreds of completely different interpretations that have now been brought together to create something shared.

For the learners, the mural reveal is about more than simply seeing a colourful new addition to their school. It is about finding their own contribution among hundreds of shapes, patterns and colours and being able to point it out to a friend, teacher or parent.

“When we started this project, we wanted every child to understand that their creativity has value,” says Amy Whittam, Stationery Marketing Manager at BIC South Africa. “Seeing their work become part of something this big makes that message tangible. Every learner contributed something different, and the mural only works because all of those different ideas are there together.”

Look closely at the completed murals and those differences become obvious. There are careful patterns, unusual colour combinations, bright splashes and creative choices that could only have come from children who were given the freedom to decide what their section should look like. Rather than trying to make the individual pieces uniform, the murals bring those differences together.

Children spend a significant part of their young lives at school, yet much of what appears on school walls is designed for them rather than created by them. These murals offer something different. Every day, learners will walk past a piece of artwork that contains something they created themselves, whether that is a carefully shaded section, an unexpected purple tree, a pattern or simply a colour combination they liked.

Together, those individual decisions have created something that could not have come from a single designer or artist.

“Children do not all think, communicate or create in the same way, and we should not expect them to,” says Whittam. “That is what makes these murals so powerful. When you stand back, you see one artwork. When you move closer, you see hundreds of individual personalities. We want learners to look at these walls and know there was space for their idea too.”

Colouring and drawing can sometimes be treated as simple classroom activities, but creative experiences give children opportunities to experiment, make decisions and communicate ideas in ways that do not always have a single correct answer.

An open-ended task can involve dozens of small decisions. Which colour should I use? What happens if I combine two colours? Should I follow the existing line or take the design in another direction? Unlike a conventional school exercise, there is no answer sheet waiting to tell them whether they got it right.

Research into childhood creativity has linked creative experiences with skills such as divergent thinking, problem-solving, communication and emotional development. Creative activities can also give children another way to express themselves, particularly when they may not yet have the words to explain exactly what they are thinking or feeling.

“Children already have extraordinary imaginations,” says Whittam. “Our role as adults is not always to tell them what to create. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is give them the tools, the space and the confidence to show us.”

The finished murals will remain at the participating schools long after the excitement of the reveal has passed. New learners will walk past them, teachers will teach alongside them and friends will continue pointing out their favourite sections.

For the children who helped create them, there is also the knowledge that their work has become a permanent part of the place where they spend so much of their time.

More than 1,690 learners started with individual pieces of paper. Those pieces have now become part of something shared, permanent and considerably bigger than anything one learner could have created alone.

“Let Your Colour Out is ultimately about celebrating individuality,” concludes Whittam. “There is something incredibly powerful about hundreds of children creating completely different pieces and then seeing that those differences can still come together beautifully. We hope every learner who sees these murals remembers that what they bring to the world matters.”

The murals ultimately make a simple point: creativity does not have to look the same to belong together. Somewhere within each one is a section a child can point to and proudly say, “I made that.”