MISSION VIEJO : An Outside Mural Tests 13 Students

Learning to work under the watchful eyes of construction workers, hospital patients and passersby is part of the experience for 13 students enrolled in Saddleback College’s Art in Public Places class.

So is working in the warm sun or cold wind, or to the sounds of jackhammers, saws and motorists who need new mufflers.

But the students believe it’s fitting, considering that they are sharing the assignment of painting an outdoor mural.

The mural’s theme: “Man and His Environment.”

Each of the six 5-by-25-foot mural panels surrounding the new wing at Saddleback Hospital Regional Medical Center say something about the changing South County environment.

In a scene being painted by Polly Pitsker and Sonja Guard, a car is rumbling toward the rolling hills, with lines of tract houses appearing in the distance. The scene is broken up into pieces to look like a jigsaw puzzle, Pitsker said.

“The idea began as the landscape and beautiful hills were being crowded out by the homes,” said Pitsker, 55, of San Juan Capistrano. “When we’re finished, it’s supposed to look like the pieces of the puzzle are falling apart. But it’s kind of changing, or evolving, as we go.”

The panels wrap around a corner of Medical Center Drive and break into other bright, colorful scenes, including a landscape with an oak tree in the foreground, beaches and seascapes, and an orange grove with a farm worker plucking fruit.

Bill Kelly, a Saddleback College District vice chancellor, proposed the mural. He also serves on the hospital’s board of governors.

Kelly wanted to cover up the construction site while providing work for the students during the two years it will take to build the hospital’s new, five-story patient care tower and helipad, Susan Lemkin, a college spokesperson, said.

Students were selected for the project in September with the help of art professors Tom Morgan and Fatemeh Holste.

The students stretched canvas over plywood panels and went to work, with a March deadline. But the rains came and a new deadline has been set for May 24. A reception is being scheduled for the artists to celebrate the mural’s completion.