By DARLA MCCAMMON

Lakeland Art Association

Edgewood art students painted pets.

Sherri Johnson has been an art teacher at Edgewood Middle School in Warsaw for over 35 years.  Her students are very fortunate because not only is she a great teacher, she is also a very accomplished artist who understands the joys and pitfalls of making work that has an audience who will purchase it.

Johnson will be exhibiting her talents at the Warsaw City Hall Art Gallery for the month of January 2018 beginning Jan. 3.  Please make a trip to downtown Warsaw, park in a visitor’s spot in the parking lot directly behind city hall, located south of the courthouse, and walk through the halls and spaces allocated for the art displays and have an enjoyable look at her work.  Admission is always free.

Recently the Animal Welfare League collaborated with Johnson in a very educational and rewarding journey to teach the students how to do a painting on real stretched canvas with colorful acrylic paint.  Both tried and true as well as new technological techniques were used and included in the lessons given by Johnson. The results were fantastic. These paintings by the students will be exhibited through the Christmas season at the AWL and once the new building is finished, will be a part of their permanent art collection with a rotation of art available for viewing, all with a theme around the pets common to the shelter.

Director of AWL Darla McCammon, herself an artist, and volunteer Martha, were able to take pets out to the students where they were excitedly waiting to see and play with them.   The students were given information about the shelter and it was discovered almost 90 percent of the students had a pet of their own at home.  (This was compared to the national average of around 60 percent).  The students learned a little about the various breeds and McCammon also brought along some of the paintings she had done of pets and animals.  All of Johnson’s classes were able to benefit from this as each group had its own private session with the pets. Johnson used innovative technologies such as iPads so the students could photograph the pets from various angles and could later use these photographs for study since the pets could not stay during all the weeks to follow for posing!  The pets enjoyed all the lavish attention and were photographed from under, over and almost everything in between!  It was quite an exciting time for the students and you can see it was also very productive by viewing some of the resulting work.  Principal Mrs. Joella Smyth encouraged this project and was proud of the efforts of these students.  Visit the AWL and see them in person soon.

Upcoming and Current Events: 

• Visit the Christmas Boutique at Lakeland Art Association!  Find lovely creative and innovative items including paintings, crafts and more! Located at 302 E. Winona Avenue, Warsaw. Open at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
• Paul Ramain exhibit at Warsaw City Hall. Open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Free admission. Ramain is changing this exhibit frequently, so be sure to make return visits till it closes at the end of December.

For more information on topics in this column, please contact Darla McCammon at [email protected] or (574) 527-4044. Older columns at www.darlamc.com