Since the COVID pandemic arrived in 2020, Newtown Middle School Art Enrichment students have not participated in the annual in-school day of art field trips. Those activities finally returned May 19 and 20.

According to NMS art teachers Leigh Anne Coles and Kris Ladue, May 19 was chosen for the seventh grade Art Enrichment Day of Art and May 20 was chosen for the eighth grade Art Enrichment Day of Art.

“We are so excited to finally have [a Day of Art,]” said Coles on May 19.

For the entire school day that day, the seventh grade students molded clay. Coles and Ladue explained the students were challenged to create their own artist pallets, including wells for paint and an area to mix paints. If they had time students created other related items, such as paint brush holders.

All of the students worked in one classroom for the event, and the following day the eighth grade students had their own Day of Art.

The eighth graders were asked to embroider a cultural hero or someone they look up to on a T-shirt. According to Coles and Ladue, the lesson was inspired from both of them attending a National Art Education Association (NAEA) conference.

The students used a photo of the person they wanted to embroider as a guide, attaching it to the shirt before stitching. For many of the students, it was their first lesson in sewing too.

“They planned everything out on their picture first,” said Coles, who was working on her own shirt with her grandmother Margaret Byrnes’s photo.

Around the room, students shared that they were embroidering everyone from celebrities to siblings.

Education Editor Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.