Some tributes fade. This one was built not to. For Teacher Appreciation Week, Orlando-based muralist Danielle Lazala of DML Paintings brought a vibrant, hand-painted community mural to life at Longwood Elementary School in Longwood, Florida. The mural is a living tribute to the educators who pour themselves into their students every single day, painted live throughout the week in the school’s outdoor P.E. area as students and staff celebrated all around it.
Florida Paints supported the project through the Paint a Brighter Day program, donating all paint and materials including SunScreen, a UV-protective clear coating formulated specifically to keep outdoor color vivid in Florida’s intense sun. The mural went up piece by piece throughout the week, unfolding in real time while students ran drills nearby and teachers celebrated with their colleagues all around it. That timing was not an accident. Teachers got to watch something beautiful take shape for them, in their honor, on their own campus.
Meet Danielle Lazala, the Orlando Artist Behind the Mural
Art Designed to Impact Its Environment
Danielle Lazala is a self-taught Dominican artist based in Orlando and the founder of DML Paintings, which she established in 2017 after years of creating custom canvas art for friends and family. Before making art her full-time career, Danielle studied and worked in psychology, and that background shapes everything she creates. She applies her understanding of how people think and feel to design artwork that intentionally changes how people experience a space. The colors she chooses, the compositions she builds, the energy a finished wall gives off are all considered with real purpose.
You can follow her work at @dml.paintings on Instagram, where she has built a community of over 126,000 followers. Her Art with a Cause initiative channels her talent toward projects that serve community rather than commerce. For the Longwood Elementary mural, Danielle donated her time and artistry entirely, making the piece a genuine act of generosity. The mural design reflects the character of the school and the pride that runs through its hallways, giving students and staff a backdrop that belongs entirely to them.
“Teachers give so much of themselves to their students, and this mural is a small way to give something meaningful back,” Danielle said. “Being able to create this during Teacher Appreciation Week, while the school is actively celebrating its teachers, makes it even more special.”
A Mural That Unfolded While the School Celebrated
One of the things that made this project special was the experience of watching it happen. The mural was not installed overnight or revealed at a ceremony. It grew throughout the week in full view, a little more complete each day, as students ran drills and teachers celebrated around it. That visibility is part of what made it meaningful. Appreciation shown in real time, in a real place, carries differently than a card or a catered lunch.
Vice Principal Teddy Adames described what it felt like from inside the school. “Our teachers are the heart of this school, and seeing this mural come to life during Teacher Appreciation Week is incredibly special. It is a beautiful, lasting reminder of how much they are valued, not just this week, but every day.” That phrase, every day, matters more than it might seem. Appreciation is easy to express for five days in May. Making something that carries that message year-round takes a different kind of commitment.
Why Outdoor Murals in Florida Fade Fast, and How to Stop It
Florida’s Sun Breaks Down Color at the Chemical Level
Florida’s UV index regularly reaches 11, which sits at the top of the exposure scale and represents conditions intense enough to begin degrading paint chemistry within a single season. UV radiation triggers photodegradation, a process where the chemical bonds holding pigments together start to break down under sustained sunlight. The binders that keep pigments attached to the surface oxidize under UV exposure, eventually leading to chalking, fading, and in time, complete coating failure making it essential to use paints and coatings speficially formulated for Florida’s climate like Florida Paints.
For murals, which rely on vivid, saturated organic pigments to tell their story, that breakdown happens faster and more visibly than on a plain painted wall. Dark, saturated colors absorb more heat and UV energy and are particularly vulnerable. A community mural painted in Florida without Florida Paints UV protection is not going to look the same in two or three years. It is going to look like a faded memory of what it used to be, and that is not the kind of legacy anyone is trying to leave.
SunScreen: Florida Paints’ UV-Protective Clear Coat
For the Longwood Elementary mural, Florida Paints donated SunScreen, its waterborne acrylic urethane UV-resistant clear topcoat, applied over the finished mural to protect the color beneath. SunScreen is specially designed to absorb a broad range of ultraviolet light, creating a transparent barrier between Danielle’s pigments and the solar radiation that would otherwise start working against them the moment the wall dries. The coating is clear, so it does not alter the appearance of the artwork. What it changes is the timeline, significantly extending the life of the mural’s vibrancy even under daily, full-sun Florida exposure.
This is exactly the kind of product that does not exist in most national paint brand catalogs, because it was developed to solve a Florida-specific problem. National brands formulate for average conditions across the entire country. Florida Paints formulates for Florida, for a UV index that hits 11, for heat that lingers well into October, for outdoor surfaces that face the sun every single day with no real off-season. You can explore the full Florida Paints product catalog to see the complete range of coatings built for this climate.
The Program Behind the Donation: Paint a Brighter Day
Florida Paints has been manufacturing paint in Winter Garden, Florida since 1960, starting as Color Wheel Paints and co-founding Florida Paints in 2012. More than 60 years later, with 28 retail locations across Florida and over 120 million gallons produced, the company’s connection to local communities is not a talking point. It is the history of the business. The Paint a Brighter Day program grew from that same sense of responsibility, providing paint donations to nonprofits, schools, and community organizations working to restore and uplift the spaces people share. To date the program has contributed approximately 8,000 gallons of donated paint to projects across Florida. You can read more about those projects on the Florida Paints blog.
When Florida Paints donates through Paint a Brighter Day, the products are not surplus. The Longwood Elementary mural received the same exterior-grade paint and UV protection that goes onto professional contractor jobs and commercial buildings across the state. A community project deserves materials that actually hold up, and Florida Paints donated accordingly.
“At Florida Paints, we are proud to support projects that celebrate teachers and strengthen our local communities,” said Santiago Quintero, Director of Marketing at Florida Paints. “By providing products engineered for Florida’s climate, we are helping ensure this mural remains a bright, lasting symbol of appreciation well beyond this week.”
A Mural That Will Outlast the Week It Was Painted For
There is a student at Longwood Elementary right now who will walk past this mural every year for the rest of their time at that school. They will see it during morning arrivals, during P.E., during the slow walks back from the water fountain. By the time they leave, the mural will feel like it has always been there, because it will have been. That permanence is what SunScreen is protecting. Not just a painted wall, but a piece of a school’s story that belongs to everyone who walks past it.
Teacher Appreciation Week happens once a year. The sun in Florida shows up every day. Thanks to Danielle Lazala’s Art with a Cause program and Florida Paints’ commitment to building products that actually survive this climate, those two timelines are no longer in conflict.
Follow DML Paintings on Instagram or visit dmlpaintings.com to see more of Danielle’s work. To find your nearest Florida Paints location, visit floridapaints.com/locations.
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Santiago Quintero
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