Crazy weather and snow days made for a hectic start to the second semester. However, students in Mrs. Davis’s art classes carried on, in and out of the classroom, to produce an impressive catalog of artwork on display this week in the lobby of the school play, “All Shook Up” which ran from Thursday, March 27-Sunday March 30.  “Usually we do an art show at an off campus, public location. Last year we exhibited at the Bridgeport Public Library, but this year we just didn’t have the time to collaborate and pull it off”, said Mrs. Davis. Displaying student work and celebrating the hard work and dedication of her students is a priority to Mrs. Davis and so displaying the show during the week of the school play was a good way to let the public see and enjoy the artwork.

 

While five advanced art sophomores were busy preparing for Governor’s School for the Arts auditions, which required students to  present a portfolio including a self-portrait, a still-life and a landscape, other students were busy creating stained glass mosaics and working on video game design and  fashion design apparel! Students also learned how to matte their own artwork, write an artist’s statement and how to create a digital portfolio for online college admissions.

 

The art exhibit features a Pointillism project that the students worked on in which they were asked to pay tribute to a dead musician. Those chosen included Tupac, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Dean Martin and the star of the school play, Elvis, himself!!  This projects required students to use only dots to create various degrees of value, dark and light areas in a picture.  Another class project featured in the show is a Zentangle landscape assignment, in which students were asked to create a landscape full of patterns and textures. The Zentangle project included watercolor and sharpie markers as its primary mediums.

 

“To prepare high school sophomores for their Governors School for the Arts portfolio requirements, students created oil lamps, lanterns or candles in Oil Pastels, we then took that idea and incorporated it into still-life compositions using Chalk Pastel. Students also created “WV Landscapes” including the New River Gorge Bridge and Moundsville State Penn using Oil Pastels. Some of these artworks are also on display in the exhibit”, says Mrs. Davis.  One sophomore, Cassie Perry was accepted into the Governors School for the Arts, a three week program during which students will stay at West Virginia Wesleyan College and participate in art classes. Only a limited number of students from around the state were chosen. Some of Cassie’s artworks are also on display in the exhibit.

 

Sarah Cory, a senior, has taken every level of art offered at BHS including Studio Art I and this semester as a Studio Art 2 student, she had the opportunity to create a video game concept, develop characters and create a story line for each level of a game. Her next assignment was to create a 3-D Video Game Environment, which she creatively made out of foam core board and colored pencils and showing One-Point Perspective, a concept she learned clear back in Art I. Her final assignment in Studio Art I, first semester, was to choose a character from her game and design (and create from scratch) an outfit that would be worn by her character. This outfit was on display at the art show as tribute to a semester of hard work and dedication. Sarah says she wants to pursue a career in 3D Animation and Game Design. Other artworks on display by Sarah includes a stained glass mosaic and beautiful chalk  portrait with dramatic red hair, entitled, “

 

This year’s Art Exhibit will be open to the public one last time on Monday, April 7th during the Bridgeport High School Talent Show from 7-8:30. If you haven’t already stopped by to take a look at the work of our talented students, please come out!