Beginning the School Year with Art 1

One of the most exciting parts of teaching high school art is watching students take the skills we’ve practiced in small studies and apply them to a major project. My students completed their first big assignment of the semester: one-point perspective drawings.

Before beginning this project, we spent time learning the building blocks of drawing—contour lines, proportion, shading to show form, and linear perspective. Understanding perspective not only makes drawings more realistic, but it also helps young artists think critically about space, depth, and design.

In this project, students combined linear perspective with other depth cues like overlapping, size variation, and placement on the page.

I love how this assignment gives students both structure and freedom: structure in the rules of perspective, and freedom in the way they design their imaginary spaces. You can see their individual styles shine through.

I see perspective drawing as more than just a technical exercise—it’s a way to teach patience, problem solving, and artistic confidence. These are skills my students will carry forward into every creative challenge this school year and beyond. I’m proud of their hard work, and I can’t wait to see how they apply these foundations in our upcoming projects.

Box Factory Student Art Exhibition

Bridgman High School students exhibited their work at the Box Factory Student Art Exhibition in St. Joseph, MI. This annual event brings together student artists from across the region, showcasing a wide range of media and ideas from emerging young artists.

Many of our students displayed work in the exhibition, representing the skill, dedication, and creativity happening in our art program. Several Bridgman students also received special recognition:

• Gavin B. earned Second Place in the 3D category. (Pictured below.)

• Grace S. received both the Bridgman Community Award and the Robert R. Williams Portrait Award.

• Carter B. was featured in the Emerging Artist category for high school seniors planning to pursue art at the college level. Carter will attend Lake Michigan College next year to study Art Education. (Pictured below.)

Opportunities like these not only celebrate achievement but also give students valuable experience sharing their work in a professional setting and engaging with the broader arts community. I want to congratulate all of our students who participated in this exhibition.

Spring Photography with Art 1

Spring is in the air! As part of our ongoing photography studies, students explored the season with an eye for color.

In Art 1, photography is integrated throughout the school year as a series of short projects, most of which students complete outside of class. We explore some fundamental aspects of photography beginning with technical camera basics, then light and shadow, composition, and finally color. These projects help students to develop a critical visual eye, experiment with photography, and get valuable feedback and insight from me and their peers.

This assignment encouraged students to build on their photography skills from this school year (like contrast and composition) and to think critically about color.

Hungerford Art Competition

Two Bridgman High School students were recognized in the Hungerford Art Competition, an annual event sponsored by Hungerford CPAs + Advisors. This competition provides an opportunity for Bridgman students to showcase their work in a professional setting. This year’s winners are:

• Tierney T. (Sophomore)

• Alexa C. (Freshman)

Both students’ artwork will be displayed at the Hungerford office in St. Joseph, MI, where it will be viewed by clients, staff, and community members.

Partnerships like this are invaluable in supporting arts education. They give students the chance to see their work recognized beyond the classroom, build confidence in their artistic abilities, and highlight the role of creativity in the broader community.

We are grateful to Hungerford CPAs + Advisors for their ongoing support of student artists, and we congratulate Tierney and Alexa on this achievement.

Colorful Birds with Art 1

As we move toward the end of the school year, the Art 1 students apply their skills in acrylic painting by painting colorful birds. This assignment is part of our larger acrylic painting unit, designed to strengthen students’ understanding of color theory and painting techniques.

For this project, students were limited to using only the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) plus black and white. By mixing complex hues themselves, they gained a deeper understanding of how color relationships work, from creating subtle neutrals to mixing vibrant secondaries and tertiaries. The restriction encouraged experimentation and problem-solving, while also reinforcing the importance of value and contrast in painting.

The choice of birds as a subject offered both structure and creative freedom. Birds provide a wide variety of shapes, patterns, and natural color palettes for students to interpret, while the small 5x7 format kept the focus on careful color mixing and brushwork. Each student’s painting reflects their growing confidence in handling acrylics and their ability to make deliberate artistic decisions.

Art 1 Paints Fire

The Art 1 students have officially begun their acrylic painting unit with a small project designed to build confidence and understanding of one of painting’s most powerful tools: contrast.

Before this assignment, students used acrylic paint to complete practice studies creating value and a color wheel in order to become familiar with mixing, blending, and handling the medium. With those foundations in place, their first small project challenged them to apply those skills in a focused and dramatic way: painting fire.

The subject of fire was chosen because it naturally requires students to create a strong glowing effect by balancing bright, saturated colors against deep, dark backgrounds. This exercise pushes students to think critically about value, layering, and edge work. It also helps them practice blending warm hues (red, orange, yellow) while still maintaining the bold differences that make the flames feel luminous.

Though small in scale, this project introduces students to essential acrylic techniques they will continue to use throughout the unit: controlling paint opacity, mixing a wide range of values, and using contrast to create visual impact. The results are dynamic, eye-catching, and an exciting first step into acrylic painting.