Brush stroking and photo snapping their way to the San Juan Capistrano Library, the art and photography of San Juan Hills students was displayed in the art gallery through June 4th.

In the Digital Photography class taught by Ryan Norgren, the students learn about all aspects of digital photography through lessons and projects. They are given specific assignments where they are intended to show the extend of their creativity.

Tibo Smolders says “I learned to use photoshop first of all. I learned that taking pictures is more than just ‘oh look at that, that looks cool’ but also living and feeling how this could make a person feel.”

Student Cameron Tilmont says that “[he] likes learning how to make photos how you want them and change them up and take things out and put them in different places.”

The assignment that was given for this art show is called a photomontage. This is the process and result of cutting and joining two or more photographs into an illusion of an unreal subject.

Using at least three original photographic images, the students had to combine all of these together to construct one final work of art. To finish it off, they had to use techniques they learned from Internet tutorials along with the following Photoshop techniques: layer masks, image adjustments and blending modes.

A photography student, Tibo Smolders says that his creation consisted of “in the backgrounds was a picture of a leave, with in front of it a etruvian man and in front of it a saying that says ‘If Not Now Then When.” His inspiration was “just living in the moment.”

Cameron says this photograph “had a picture of another person with light painting on top, she looked like an angel. And randomly added pictures and changed the different settings of them to make it look like it went from good to evil.”

Taught by Jan Colt, the Drawing & Painting class is for students who have absolutely no experience drawing so they have room to grow and express themselves in a whole different way, or for students who have great expertise in this field who want to improve or continue doing what they love.

Art student, Tanner Novak says he has “learned how to shade, creating dimension in [his] work.”

For this specific project there are many different fields of assignment types for the students to choose from. They could use their artwork from the Non-Objective Object where the students would have to visually communicate using the elements and principles of art but not with recognizable images or symbols. The title of the artwork is the somewhat the clue of what the piece is supposed to be.

5+ Values, another project option, is where the students would recreate a small black and white photocopy of their face only using a black and white scale.

Students could also choose to do an Expressive Self Portrait where they would use the same idea as the 5+ Values but instead with expressive colors artistic license.

And the last choice the students could do the Creative Texting challenged where the students chose a word to emphasize or deconstruct as a work of art, using the elements and principles of art to communicate content to the viewer.

Congratulations to all of the students whose art featured in the art show, great work!