Print Story Email Story Discuss Story (0)

Recommend ( 0 )

News-Sun photo by CHRISTOHER TUFFLEY Students worked in groups creating sidewalk chalk paintings. Dozens of students turned out to illustrate the theme: ÔEmbracing Your Differences.'

click any photo to view this story's photo gallery

Related Links

advertisement

published: Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Students put art in chalk form

By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY

christopher.tuffley@newssun.com

SEBRING - Two hundred and fifty students at Sebring High School spent Friday morning creating chalk drawings on the pavement in front of the Smith Center. Chalk Walk was the culmination of the school's Art Appreciation Week and sponsored by the Art Club, whose president is Makayla Patterson.

The theme was "Embracing Your Differences."

"The first thing you think of when you hear 'embrace your differences' is black and white," Makayla said," but that's not it. It's about all differences, like being deaf or blind, or liking different kinds of music."

One group of girls divided their space into four spaces, each drawing their own square. Then they blurred all the borders so in the end it was of one piece. "We did it together," said a member of the group. "Even though our styles are different."

Another group drew the world as a big jigsaw puzzle, with all the pieces fitting together.

There were Disney princesses, and other cartoon characters all getting along. ET's finger reached out to a child's finger, drawn in the style of Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

There were many worlds, some surrounded by flags, others by people or children.

The most complex picture - a brick wall covered in graffiti with an Hispanic and white shaking hand around the corner. "There will be a chandelier on one side," one of the artists said. "On the other there's a trash can fire."

Prizes will be awarded, but students have to sweat through spring break first. The judges will announce the winners when school resumes.

Artists Day was Thursday. Five artists set up in the breezeway leading to the cafeteria, available to all students. They answered questions about possible art or art related careers. They also explained about their particular art forms. Among the artists, Harold Conner had a display of older and antique cameras; Linda Carr and Norma Bautista demonstrated porcelain painting; and Laura Tenneson showed how she makes a living painting plain, pull-on, white sneakers, turning them into colorful, individual personal statements.

"I'm here hoping to attract new blood so we don't lose the art that started in China centuries ago," said Carr, who, with Bautista, represented the Lake Placid China Painters.

Conner allowed Roneika Freeman to handle some of the cameras. "This one's a Bell and Howell 8 mm from the late '50s to the early '60s," Conner told her, as she peered through the view finder. "It's the kind of camera Steven Speilberg used when he was young."