Craig Thomas, youths paint mural for Bollinger County Library

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Hot purple lava exploded from a fiery volcano and dinosaurs formed on the library floor as artist Craig Thomas worked with area youths to paint a mural for the outside wall of the Bollinger County Library facing Plutarch Street.

Thomas lives in Cape Girardeau and is the president of the Visual Arts Co-Op located at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau. He is a freelance artist well known for his fine art, murals, drawings and street painting.

Painting both Wednesday and Thursday, Thomas allowed people of all ages to contribute their own painting strokes to the murals.

Sisters Ellie and Makayla McGruder of Patton, Mo., got their hands wet in the paint both days and would have painted more if they could.

"We like to draw a lot," Ellie, said. Eleven years old, Ellie once won a drawing contest.

Older sister Makayla, 12, said they've both loved art "ever since we can remember."

The four-section mural was designed by Thomas. The scenes begin with an erupting volcano spewing lava across the future scenes. In the next section, Thomas painted a Bollinger County history lesson, featuring the dinosaur discovered in 1942, when a local family uncovered a number of dinosaur fossils while digging a well. Thomas' dinosaur is a representation of Missouri's state dinosaur, the Hypsibema missouriensis.

As she painted the sky on the mural Wednesday, Ellie said she was excited about the educational value of the murals. "It's like visual history," she said. "I look at the dinosaurs and can actually see what they might have looked like. It's history through drawings."

The dinosaur lesson continues throughout the scenes, with small fast-running Ornitholestes-like dinosaurs and long-wing-spanned flying reptiles. The mural ends with the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Thomas said it's important to communicate to the community that the library offers more than books. "The library always offers a point of reference when you need to find something," he said. "But more importantly it's about interacting with people."

Tammy Whitney, community outreach coordinator for the library, said she's unsure when the mural will be hung.