MARYSVILLE – Harry Engstrom got up in front of the art class at Cedarcrest School and mashed the bristles of his paintbrush, practically ruining it. He encouraged others to do so, too. He even slapped huge swaths of paint on the wall.
And he didn’t get in trouble.
Engstrom, 51, has been getting away with painting on a lot of buildings lately. The professional muralist, part-time art teacher and children’s pastor is almost finished with a 16- by 58-foot mural of Cedarcrest’s mascot, timber wolves, near a mountain stream.
Snow-dusted pinnacles dominate the painting’s background. A thin cascade wisps down toward steep, rugged cliffs below.
The school’s painting is the fifth mural Engstrom has finished in the past couple of years. The other four are in downtown Arlington, where he has lived since 1998.
The most recent is a 7- by 285-foot wildlife mural called “Native Species of the Puget Sound Region” on the wall going up the hill on Olympic Avenue south of downtown.
Another, “The Run of No. 3,” is a spectacular 18- by 45-foot rendition of the defunct Monte Cristo Railroad, which ran through Granite Falls until the early 1900s. It is on the back of Evonne’s Corner Antique Mall.
The other two paintings depict Whitehorse Mountain and a Ford Model T on MeLady Lanes bowling alley, and three cows on Arlington Health Foods.
Whenever he can, Engstrom, a teacher at heart, tries to get the public involved. At Cedarcrest, he loves to paint on school days so he can interact with the students.
Emily Turner and Stephen DiMascio, both 11, got to watch Engstrom work as part of Janell Reich’s art class. They remembered how he mashed the brush to get the right texture for drawing fir trees.
“For the river, he said he just did little short strokes to make it look like it had a really good texture,” DiMascio said.
Turner said she learned “how you can make it look so realistic.”
The trickiest part of mural painting for the students he teaches at the Stillaguamish Valley School in Arlington is getting them to back away from their work at regular intervals.
“They want to just stay up there, even though they can’t tell what they’re doing,” Engstrom said.
Reich recommended Engstrom after seeing his work in Arlington. Cedarcrest’s Parent Teacher Association commissioned the work for $5,000. Engstrom has worked more than 100 hours on it.
“He’s really good with working with the kids,” Reich said.
Engstrom said some of the boys at Cedarcrest came up to him while he was painting the wolves and asked him if he could paint a wolf eating a wildcat.
“At first I had no idea what they were talking about,” Engstrom said.
Later he realized the mascot of Cedarcrest’s rival, Marysville Middle School, is a wildcat.
“Maybe I can work in some wildcat bones,” Engstrom said, grinning.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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