The hallway of the second floor, as work on the library doors commences in June 2002.

Max and Rachel preparing the doors for painting. Notice the rather unexciting whites and grays that dominate the overall design (the pretty splash of blue on the left-hand door is a bulletin board).

Black and white predominate as Stephanie, Rachel, and Ligia work on the outline of the dragon (designed by the whole group). This is a shot from the interior of the library (notice the lockers in the hallway). The doors were cleaned, primed, and masked before painting began.

Rachel and Ligia start to fill in the blanks. The outside of the "lair" has already been painted in gold, silver, gray, and black. All of the paints are enamel, mixed to just the right shade in styrofoam bowls. (For those who are interested, if you leave enamel paint sitting in styrofoam for long enough, it forms a skin all the way around and stays liquid in the middle, so you can lift it out of the bowl in one piece. Primer, however, will dissolve styrofoam in just a few seconds. A certain painter learned this the hard way.)

Inside the library, Rachel puts some finishing touches on the book the dragon is holding. The book is entitled "Dragon Tales." Notice the purple baby dragon nestled in the tail.

Rachel scales the heights to fill in the "LIBRARY" lettering, which is based on the font used in Tolkien's maps.

The crew at the entrance to the lair.

The artists and their masterwork.