Visual arts students at Woodbridge High meticulously selected their artwork to be submitted to the Orange County Arts for All competition. 

Orange County Arts for All is an art competition for students from kindergarten to 12th grade. During this competition, art teachers submit 20 pieces of student art, with five from each grade, to be selected for the first round of judging. 

“The first round goes to Crystal Court in South Coast Plaza and they hang the artworks on all three levels by grade level,” visual arts teacher Jillian Rogers said. “Usually [kindergarten] through fifth are on the first level and then all the way up to high school. They have a little awards reception and then they jury that show.”

Advanced Placement (AP) drawing students carefully crafted their art during the first semester and chose their favorite out of the many they have created to submit to this competition.  

“For the AP drawing students and Advanced, I let them choose which artwork they want to submit,” Rogers said. “For studio art, and I think painting and drawing as well, the instructor will decide.”

Woodbridge High students in visual arts create art through dedication and perseverance during the first semester to ultimately be chosen for this competition. One of these art students, senior Sasha Pajanji chose to submit her masterpiece titled “Amoeba”. 

“I tried something which I experimented a lot in and so I submitted that one because all my previous works, which were bigger in canvas, [were] hard for me to bring to school,” Pajanji said. “I felt more confident in this one, so I felt more comfortable submitting that.”

Pajangi’s “Amoeba” began as a piece of fabric that went through a long process of spraying tie-dye, painting details and sewing beads until it was complete and “Amoeba” was created.

“I just made my own spray but I tie-dyed and then put them in spray bottles and I sprayed the fabric so I could have a sprayed look. And after that based on the outline of the colors, I would take paint markers and sketch how they would look,” Pajanji said.

“Amoeba” and other submitted works now have the chance to advance to the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. This show allows students to show off their hard work and unique perspectives in a professional setting. 

Another artist and sophomore Byul Chung submitted one of her art pieces called “Losing Connection”. Chung put a lot of detail into creating an image of splitting heads with earbuds using many different mediums, including pencil, marker and watercolor and adding small meticulous details, Chung’s “Losing Connection” was created.

“I started with a sketch and colored using watercolor,” Chung said. “I added glitch details using alcohol markers and outlined using ink pens.”

She utilized a blend of different shades of blue, yellow, red and skin colors. Her inspiration for her art piece was the way earbuds connect.

“Earbuds and Airpods lose connection when they get too far apart,” Chung said. “I wanted to capture that in a surreal sense where the head is stretching to the point that the earbuds lose connection.”

Beyond the individual expressions of artists like Chung and Pajangi, a perk of participating in Orange County Arts for All is that selected art pieces can be turned into postcards to be sold at the competition’s gift shop. 

“The artworks selected from [the first] show go to Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts which is prestigious,” Rogers said. “They jury [the] Laguna show and they give awards for that.”

20 pieces of student art from Woodbridge High were chosen for display in Crystal Court, South Coast Plaza for the first round of judging.