The RRCC Lakewood campus is closed due to an electrical outage. All appointments are cancelled for today, July 31. The Arvada campus is open.
July 31, 2026 | By Yesenia Robles, RRCC, MarCom
"Students can make really good money painting murals." That's what Katie Gabriel Ramos tells her students — and this fall, she's teaching them exactly how at Red Rocks Community College. One of the outdoor courtyard spaces on the Lakewood campus is getting a facelift this year after students in a unique, new course paint a mural.
The course will teach students to pitch, design and paint murals. “We’ll discuss everything from how to seek out those opportunities and how to set up. It’s an avenue where students can be successful.”
It’s one of the ways RRCC supports faculty who want to be creative in the courses they offer.
“If I can come up with an idea and we can get enrollment, it’s supported,” said Katie Gabriel Ramos, the faculty member who will teach the course.
In this case, the course is one of the projects funded by the RRCC President’s Dream Grant. The grant fund was set up to provide funding for projects and ideas that students or employees came up with, empowering the entire RRCC community to be involved in improving the school.
The mural course will help beautify a space on campus that is currently underutilized, but will also offer students a unique opportunity to learn about taking their art to a professional level to make a living.
The concept of the course was something Ramos had the opportunity to test out this spring with a trial course through the school’s non-credit workforce program.
Courtesy photo
Ramos enrolled six students in that course, and the group designed and painted a mural for the Arvada Elks Lodge that was completed earlier this summer. The mural, which can be seen from 57th and Yukon streets in Arvada, features an elk, mountains in the background, columbine flowers and the words: Charity, Justice, Brotherly Love, and Fidelity.
Lion Taylor was one of the students who took the course. She had already taken classes from Ramos in the past and so, she said, “I just kind of hopped on it.”
“For one, she’s great to work with,” Lion said. “But I also thought it was an opportunity to try out painting in another realm. And it was a really cool experience.”
Lion said she most enjoyed the process of talking through ideas with the clients to understand what it means to them and how to arrive at a great design.
“We’re all actually really proud of it,” Lion said. “The choices we made along the way, the collaboration and seeing all of our different input end up all together, it was a really cool thing.
The Elks Lodge didn’t pay for the mural, but in partnering with RRCC for the course, they offered small scholarships for the students participating.
Courtesy photo
“It was good, the students were really happy with the experience and said they were feeling more confident about going out to do their own projects and excited about seeking out those opportunities,” Ramos said.
The leaders of the Elks Lodge were happy with the mural, so “it all went really well,” Ramos said.
On one Facebook post, the group’s page thanked the students with a comment that read, “Absolutely amazing! Thank you for all you work to create this. It is greatly appreciated”
Lion said that if others are considering taking the upcoming mural course this fall, they should go for it.
“Whether or not they have experience painting, it brings everybody together in a cool way,” Lion said. “It’s a cool way to get to know yourself as an artist.”
When registering for the class, ART 2305 Mural Painting I, the system shows a prerequisite, but if students email Ramos, she can override the requirement so that anyone interested can join.