Kaitlyn Perrier, senior, starts her art pieces with an idea and a sketch.

Then she roughs in the main colors and adds highlights and lowlights to create detail, often using recycled materials. She enjoys creating zentangles, abstract drawings using repetitive patterns, and mandalas, geometric figures representing the universe.

“It was originally ‘try to come up with a quick idea’,” Perrier said. “Now I tend to think of ideas and when something strikes me that might be cool, I write it down, and then when I’m in the mood to do it or a project fits the assignment, I’ll start working on it and I typically gather supplies and think about what medium I want to do it in.”

Perrier is a second year AP Art Studio student. Her concentration for this year’s show is surrealism.

“I wanted to challenge myself because last year, the hardest project for me to come up with an idea for or to create and see to completion was the surrealism project,” Perrier said. “But when I finished it, I loved it. So I thought it would be good to challenge myself my second year in AP Art and do something that would force me to be really out of the box with my thinking.”

Each AP Art Studio student displays 24 pieces. Twelve pieces are a concentration of the students’ choice and the other 12 are breadth pieces, a broad theme assigned by the teacher.

The students each get one side of a display board to display their work; all setup is done by them, and they choose which pieces they want to display. The students spend the entire week after spring break setting up for the show.

“It does help you think about spacing and layout,” Perrier said. “It is a little bit of a pain in the butt. I think we spend about two or three classes prepping.”

This year’s student viewing of the AP Art Show will be on Thursday, March 24, from first to seventh hours. The evening opening show is on the March 23 from seven to eight p.m.

“I’m always excited for the art show because sometimes people in the class do a lot of work at home, and so it’s like a show for you too,” Perrier said. “You get to see who they are through their artwork, and you get to kind of glimpse into people’s souls and minds through the art. It’s just fun. It’s fun to look at, it’s fun to hang out with friends and just enjoy being creative.”

Melissa Zemann, AP Art Studio teacher, has been coordinating the AP Art shows for five years.

She describes the art show as a “stepping stone along the path as students prepare for their AP exams in May,” and believes said it is important for the artists to learn how to set up their pieces for display.

“You have to know how to select the artwork, how to mat the artwork, how to hang the artwork, and that’s part of why I have them do it, because that way they already are exposed to that and kind of have that editing and be able to take pride in their display,” Zemann said.

There are 16 AP Art students who will be participating in the art show.

“It’ll be interesting this year because we have six AP Studio II students, so that means we’ll have six kids out of the 16 that have already done the show once, so they already have a better idea of what to do and may be able to help out the other kids, so hopefully it’ll make for a great show,” Zemann said.