Southern Nash High School advanced visual arts honors class teacher Kelly Williams recognized seniors Monserrat Campos and Brenda Santiago-Hernandez in November for making waves with their artwork. Williams said the students are dedicated to their craft and actively contribute to their school’s National Art Honor Society Club.
“They have been a great team both in and out of the classroom, helping one another brainstorm on individual assignments, working on special projects for the school and in using their talents to help with community service projects,” Williams said. “Brenda and Monserrat are both fantastic students with excellent work ethic and positive attitudes.”
Williams said Campos’ and Santiago-Hernandez’s contributions extend beyond their individual assignments, as they also collaborate on special projects for the school and use their talents for community service projects.
Campos, 17, recently completed a piece titled “The Night Of Oo’s,” inspired by the Halloween season. Using a combination of cardboard, acrylic paint, tempera paint, Sharpie, manila paper and pencil, Campos spent one to two weeks crafting her artwork. A person in a mask covering half of her face with colored shapes aound the eyes appears to be created in a nighttime setting.
Campos said her favorite part of the process was detailing the person’s eyes and the balloon in the artwork.
“I found this to be exciting because I got to use my imagination to take over,” she said.
Campos plans to continue studying visual arts and hopes to learn digital arts for a long-term career.
Brenda Santiago-Hernandez, also 17, created a piece titled “THE SILLY CLOWNS” using watercolor paper and gouache. It appears to show clowns with dogs’ faces in a circus-like setting. The artwork took three days to complete and was inspired by face cutout photo boards from fairs. She modeled the faces after her dogs and a friend’s dog.
“My favorite parts of my artwork are my dogs and the clown face cutout board,” she said.
Santiago-Hernandez said she enjoys the relaxing environment of the class and finds the projects interesting. SHe said her future goal is to be successful in art and life in general.