‘It took over 10,000’: Local teacher creates muppet themed mural using post-it notes

WHITESBURG, Ky. (WYMT) - Since 2017, the windows of the Harry M. Caudill Memorial Library have been the canvas for Tyler Watts’ post-it note murals.

“I just try to top myself every year trying to make it bigger and bigger,” said Watts. “This is about as big as I can make here. These are the biggest windows in town that I’m aware of so it’s the best canvas I could ever ask for.”

Watts is a math teacher at Letcher Elementary. He says the murals started in his classroom.

“We were working on line symmetric shapes one day and we started using post-it notes to create wild line symmetric shapes and that’s where the idea came from,” he said.

His students are involved in the designing process. They calculate the area and perimeter of the windows to estimate how many post-it notes are required.

“Do I need one pack of 90 or do I need five packs of 90? Let’s round that to 100 and then we get into the math behind it and then how many will I need. It’s a pretty cool way to tie it into the curriculum,” said Watts. “Just to help them realize that math is in everything that you do almost and if they can see it tied into art in a large scale project and have a little ownership in it, I’ll do this as long as I can.”

The mural took more than 10,000 post-it notes and about two weeks to complete.

“They keep getting bigger and bigger and it’s been a lot of fun,” said Watts.

This year’s theme is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Watts says each year the theme has to be something that has a Christmas movie. In years past he has done Charlie Brown Christmas and Mickey’s Christmas Carol.

“I thought this would be good for 2020. 2020 has been a tough year for a lot of us and to use this design maybe it could put a, I know it could make people smile but maybe even laugh a little bit,” said Watts.

The owner of post-it notes, 3M, donates all the post-it notes to Watts each year. 3M is located in Cynthiana, Kentucky.

Watts makes these murals all across the state.

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