High school students from across Illinois have gathered on Eastern’s campus this week to take part in the 2012 Summer Art School.

The 2012 Summer Art School is a week-long summer camp sponsored by the School of Continuing Education where students can learn and experience several different styles of art that use various types of media, said JoEllen Hickenbottom, program coordinator for the School of Continuing Education.

Fifty-three Students arrived on campus Sunday and will be attending three two-hour courses each day, Monday through July 20 from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m, in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

Courses offered include sculpture, metalsmithing, surface design: images on fabric and painting.

Dorothy Bennett, a part-time sculpture instructor at Eastern, has taught the art camp’s sculpture course for 18 years and said students will create a skeletal structure out of newspaper, wire and Styrofoam and cover the structure with a plastic coating to create a sculpture.

The purpose of the metalsmithing course is to teach students how to use copper, brass and other semiprecious metals to make jewelry, Bennet said.

The surface design: images on fabric course will teach students how to dye, print, paint and stitch fabric to create 2-D and 3-D fiber art, according to the camp’s brochure.

The painting course will teach students how to create a grid and use acrylic paint to create a still-life, Bennett said.

At 1:30 p.m. July 21, students will be able to display their artwork at an exposition in the Tarble Art Center. Parents of the campers will be invited.

Bennett said she is always excited to teach younger children her craft and that the place of art in schools is very important.

With cuts in educational funding around the state, the fine arts are often the first programs to get cut from a school’s budget, Bennett said.

She said studies have shown that children who are taught fine arts starting a young age all the way through school do better academically because they use the side of the brain that is not often used.

Cassidy Spencer, of Greenville High School, will be attending the metalsmithing, surface design: images on fabric and painting courses.

Spencer makes jewelry and uses the profits to send hygiene packs to families in Nicaragua through the Nicaragua Christian Education Foundation.

She said the skills she will learn in the metalsmithing course will help her in creating better jewelry to help the foundation.

Spencer also said she is excited to see other people’s art and how other people react to her art.

Tim Deters can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].