An art mural to soothe patients entering the Monadnock Community Hospital emergency room was started by high school art students Saturday. ConVal School District elementary students will be able to add their art to the mural next month.

The temporary hallway was built for ambulance patients while the construction of the new emergency room is under way.

Even though the gray walls had been given a coat of white paint by hospital maintenance staff in preparation of the mural, the 115-foot long hallway with its series of bright fluorescent light fixtures on the narrow ceiling seemed “creepy” to ArtAccess student Lauryn Welch when she arrived at the hospital Saturday morning.

“It needed something,” said Laura Sebert, an Arts Enrichment program coordinator.

The project started when the hospital’s new Emergency Room director Tom Modini, approached Dana Marangi, a Bond Wellness Center coordinator and chair of the hospital’s Healing and the Arts Committee, about the hallway.

“He had an idea — we have children’s art work there,” said Marangi.

So Marangi reached out to the Arts Enrichment program, which in turn reached out to the ArtAccess Teen Portfolio Program to create the mural.

The students were asked to create a mural that would evoke feelings of calmness and hope, as the viewers will be the people being rushed into the ER from an ambulance, said Naomi Graham, ArtAccess instructor.

The project is not only a chance for the high school and elementary students to collaborate on a huge art project — there is 2,100 square feet of wall and ceiling to paint — it’s a chance for the children to make a difference in people lives, Graham said.

In preparing for the project, the ArtAccess students researched the affects various colors have on people.

When they arrived at the hospital Saturday morning, though, the group of six students quickly split into two groups — the students who thought cool shades of blue would be calming and the students who thought that warm shades of yellow would be comforting.

Members of the desert team, Lauryn Welch, 19, of Hancock, Sandy McCarthy, 17, of New Ipswich and Katelyn Lee, 17, of Peterborough, said the shades of yellow are more cheerful.

“When we prepared, we went through what we would want to see. We wanted to create something that was warm and inviting for all personalities,” McCarthy said.

The water team, Jessica Comeau, 17, of Greenville, Ameera Sylvin, 16, of Temple and Mariah Siegmann, 17, of Mason, said they wanted to calm people.

“We all thought blue colors would be calming, mellow you out,” Siegmann said.

“We want to calm the people who are coming in on a stretcher. They are coming into a very scary situation or I would feel that way,” Comeau said.

At the entrance to the hallway, the artists are working to create a cool, calming underwater motif, which will transition into a desert theme with warm, comforting light, before the patients enter the bright lights of the emergency room, Graham said. “Essentially the feeling we want to give people is total calmness.”

Connecting the ocean to the desert seemed to be a creative stumbling block for the students at first, Graham said. “We just had a major break-through 10 minutes ago. ... It’s going to be like a beach where the waves are crashing over the land.”

“We are trying to find a happy medium,” Welch said. “It’s important for yourself to feel happy and relaxed when you are doing this project because it will reflect in the art work.”

The art students plan to use jellyfish as a unifying theme — swimming in the blue ocean and then in the sky over the desert, Graham said. “We’re artists, what can your do.”

The hospital staff asked the students for a hope-filled mural with no “heavenly images,” Graham said. “They don’t want people to think ‘oh no, it’s happening.’”

Because of that request, Graham said, they plan to paint spiraling clouds, in an Asian-inspired art style, instead of white, fluffy clouds.

Sebert said that while Arts Enrichment has empowered the high school students to take thematic charge of the mural, they have been asked to create about 100 spaces within the mural where the elementary school students will paint their images. All elementary school classes in the district, third grade and up, have been asked to participate, she said.

“We’ve charged the teachers to ask the children what is it that comforts them when they are sick,” Sebert said.

Whether it be a Teddy bear or a grandparent, the children are going to sketch the picture at school, then come to the hospital on a day in early March to paint their picture into the mural. “The children are going to paint that,” Sebert said.

There are several unclaimed spaces, Sebert said, because so far only Dublin and Temple classrooms have responded to the invitation to participate in the project.

“Right now there’s only 80 kids signed up to do it,” Graham said.

The mural will be completed in the next three to four weeks, Marangi said. Before the project began on Saturday the long, cold hallway made you feel like you were entering a construction site, Marangi said. Now it is a beautiful, warm, inviting space, she said. “I think it’s great. ... I like what they’ve done so far and I’m looking forward to seeing the details.”

The hallway will be dismantled in September, when the construction project is completed. Portions of the art will be saved, Marangi said, with the possibility of hanging the art in the hospital, in the schools and in the Sharon Arts Center.

“It’s so big we might be able to give lots of it away,” Marangi said.

ArtAccess is a teen class at the Sharon Arts Center that prepares high school art students for college and careers in the arts.

The ConVal Arts Enrichment Program is a school district supported program that works to create connections to the elementary school students and the arts community through a variety of programs, performances and activities.

The hospital’s Healing and the Arts Committee was recently formed to bring art and music into the hospital setting.