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Arts & Entertainment

Art Of The Future

Students of Mills High School learn and showcase digital art and web design.

At Mills High School, the future of art – new artists and new forms of expression through digital art – looks very bright.

In the Web Design and Digital Photography classes taught by Jane Scott-Jones, students learn digital art and become familiar with Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver and Photoshop programs. 

"The Digital Photography class is very rich in material about photographers," Scott-Jones said. "It uses Photoshop and the internet to go along with live shooting."

Each class is every bit a college-level, designed to give students not only a theoretical grounding, but also to develop skills they can apply as part of a career, according to Scott-Jones.

In Web Design, students apply their learning through assignments as well as weekly journal questions designed to probe their imaginations.

"I really liked the freedom and trust Mrs. Scott-Jones gave her students to create and imagine," said former student Stephanie Zhu.

The San Mateo County Office of Education's Regional Occupational Program, which provides career technical training to students and adults in the county, funds the classes at Mills. 

Scott-Jones has been teaching for 25 years, 16 years with ROP, of which three have been at Mills. To build the links with the professional world, ROP teachers all have an industry background along with their teaching credentials, and Scott-Jones is no exception, having a Career and Technical Education Certification.

"I have real work experience as a webmaster and designer for a publishing company," Scott-Jones said.

This year, ROP and many of the local high schools extended their relationship to present an online art show. Running from May 10 through Sept. 24, students have the opportunity to showcase their work from art and multimedia, digital photography, gaming, animation and video production courses.

The work includes an artistic digital photograph, a graphically-designed campaign flyer and an online web page, highlighting the diversity of talent and the range of skills students learned through the year.

Nine of Scott-Jones's students are participating in the show, including Amanda Yau. Her piece was an example of Pop Art, where she used multiple copies of a single photograph of her friend jumping in front of an urban backdrop, displayed in different shades of color using Photoshop.

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"My favorite kind of art style is modern art, because it creates a vibe that is young and new to everyone," Yau said. "Most of my art pieces include a landscape or an object that relates to urban life."

Yau enjoys displaying her work in the srt show.

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"It made me happy and I felt satisfied, accomplishing one of my goals in life, showing my art work to the public," Yau said.

Scott-Jones agrees the show has been a big success. "The kids loved it and next year we will have even more artwork up." 

More important than the accolades received for their work, Scott-Jones stresses that the coursework geared to teach students current forms of art media can help prepare them for relevant careers.

"These classes bring students into the reality of mass communication and lets them see the possibilities of the medium and what they can do in their future careers," Scott-Jones said.

Check out Online Art Show at www.ropartshow.com

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