I brought in a large painting by my friend Tim Castle. The piece, titled "Noisy Birds," was viewed by the Sub-Freshmen enrolled in my Fall '96 semester of Interrelated Arts at University Laboratory High School (Urbana, IL.) Their assignment was to "find" a bird in the abstract-expressionist painting, draw a color-pencil full-body portrait of it in its native habitat. They created a name and description of the bird and typed it up as a text document saved to computer. The original drawings were scanned, then the text and images were combined so that each student would have a page. We looked to a John James Audubon book for design and content inspiration.

We originally intended to make a full-color book, but at the time it proved to be cost prohibitive. Publishing on the web was practically as good, if not better. I think you'll find the student works entertaining, imaginative, and inspired. Enjoy!

-Karen Hellyer, Art Teacher