High school students may be used to seeing their work in the hallways and classrooms of their school, but the Rye Free Reading Room wanted to give art students a creative boost and invited students from Rye Neck High School to exhibit their work at the library for the next month.

The show is titled “Winter Scenes in Oil Pastel,” and was coordinated by art teachers Jennifer Dallow and Karen Fontecchio, in conjunction with the Rye Library. An opening reception to show off the work was held on Jan. 21 as many of the students and their proud families were on hand to gaze at the paintings.

“The pride and the excitement for the kids is great,” Dallow said. “It gives real meaning to have their work showcased in the community, because lots of people will see it, not just people they know, and there’s something exciting about that.”

Students in Rye Neck’s Studio Art and Intermediate Art classes created the work using oil pastels. The ninth through 12th grade students used a variety of techniques to blend colors including the use of turpentine to thin out the medium and create a wash effect.

“We chose 20 pieces from the four classes; the work we felt was most appealing,” said Fontecchio. “This is a great venue for students to exhibit and it’s wonderful that so many people will be getting a chance to see what they can do.”

According to the teachers, the subjects included silhouettes, where students focused on the use of color and contract, and winter scenes of people and animals, which focused on color blending and detail.

“Design principles that were addressed were composition, color, texture and contract. As shown by the work, there is a range of interest and level of expertise,” Dallow said. “We celebrate the artwork and are proud of all our artists at Rye Neck High School.”

For 10th grader Emily Mastoloni, having her work hanging in the Library is an honor and she looks forward to more art classes. For her project, she painted the Disney character Goofy.

“I just wanted to do something with a lot of color and I didn’t want to do another winter scene, because we were doing a lot of them, and I like Goofy so I thought it would be different,” she said. “I really enjoy art and using the different mediums. We have some great teachers at the school.”

Her proud mother Libby agrees: “The art teachers here have been great since kindergarten,” she said. “They have fostered this in them and you don’t see that a lot. It’s really nice to see and I’m so impressed by everything today.”

Senior Gary Axisa, who admits he didn’t like art before taking Miss Dallow’s class, chose to do a silhouette for his project.

“I did the Brooklyn Bridge,” he said. “I saw that picture and I liked it a lot. I think it came out good.”

Fontecchio says that it’s important that the students get some response for their work, other than from their classmates and teachers, as it could open their minds to a more artistic career.

“We like to get Rye Neck students out in the community,” she said. “We do various things to get their work somewhere other than the school. It’s nice for them and important for them to see their work hung. Most were very excited when we told them their work would be displayed.”

The exhibit will be on view through the end of February and the library plans on keeping up the tradition of allowing great work by the young artists of the future to be shown there.

“This is a great tie-in for the library and the school,” said library director Kurt Hadeler. “This is their community, so having this in the children’s room creates such a vibrant part, where people from the community can come in and see the local children’s art, which is fantastic.”