Students and artists alike put their best work on display during the Whidbey Festival of the Arts on June 7 and 8 at South Whidbey High School. The festival was a year-end celebration of several groups working to bring artists to teach in classrooms.

The Whidbey Island Arts Council, South Whidbey Parent Teacher Association and the South Whidbey School District sponsored the event which featured work from all grade levels. The festival drew more than 400 people throughout the weekend.

“The festival highlights what kids are doing in schools,” said Frank Rose of the Whidbey Island Arts Council. “Art always falls behind and it is up to the community to do it. The Arts Council has taken on that role.”

Rose said there is a need for artists to come into classrooms as a supplement to the lack of an arts program due to declining enrollment. The artists assure the children are exposed to art.

Students explored the styles of many artists including Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams and Piet Mondrian. Students also worked in a variety of mediums including water colors, clay and cyanotypes (photographic prints made from UV light exposure).

Fifth-grade student Chloe Loehr studied proportions and faces through self portraits, along with the rest of her peers. The class began with sketches of their faces and then they worked with clay to create self portraits.

“With clay, you don’t know what color you’re going to end up with,” she said. “But I think my colors turned out good.”

Betsy Gmerek, South Whidbey Elementary School art docent, art docent volunteer coordinator and artist-in-residence, worked with first graders and taught them how to draw what they see. “We went over lines, details and how to mix colors,” she said.

She added the program and festival show how students can learn through arts, from critical thinking to everything in life. Without this program, there would be no other way for elementary students to learn about art, she said. In almost every classroom there’s an art docent now and five artists-in-residence.

“My heart goes out to the volunteers for all of their work,” she said. “I want to bring awareness to the different programs and how well they can work together.”

Don Wodjenski, art teacher at the high school, was excited to show his students’ work at the festival.

“The festival is about celebrating art, we have a rich art community and we want to celebrate that,” Wodjenski said.

“It’s the end-of-year celebration. The people and kids that made all of this happen, this is youth art. And that has meaning in this state of standardized testing,” he added.

The council is aiming to have 12 artists and raise $8,000 for the 2013-2014 school year, Rose said. But finding the right combination of artist and teacher is difficult, he said.

The event was a complete success, and Rose fulfilled his goal of making community members aware of the arts organizations, artists and community programs that support Whidbey Island schools.

“Art is a big piece of our community on the island and it’s good for island economy,” he said.