Woman Spends 700 Hours Creating Children’s Gospel Mural

Source: Worawee Meepian / Getty

Texas artist Vickie Valladares dedicated four months and 700 long hours to completing a mural in the children’s hallway of Greater Vision Community Church in Killeen, Texas.

Up for a challenge, Valladares completed the special piece one week shy of the start of Vacation Bible Study. In what started out as an after-work hobby where no more than four hours a day were spent working on the mural, Valladares soon realized that time was not on her side. The project began at the end of February and by the middle of May, she chose to devote her entire self to the project and quit her job.

As a woman who’s not only written and illustrated children’s books and painted murals in residential homes, Valladares is quite established when it comes to her eye for art. In honor of those who died in the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, Valladares also donated artwork to the Uvalde Public Library in its “Hallway of Love” While volunteering at the church, Valladares’ mother-in-law overheard that Greater Vision Community Church was in need of a painter, opening up the perfect opportunity for the artist to showcase more of her talent.

The mural in the church’s hallway depicts a little girl with puff balls from a gospel comic book who finds a friend in Jesus. As you continue down the hallway, the wall goes deeper into who Jesus is, including his crucifixion, the creation of man and all living things, and the negative effects of sin. Closing out the Biblical illustration, the popular scripture John 3:16 appears saying, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”