“Paint not the thing, but its effect,” artist Stéphane Mallarmé once said. And what better effect can one have than to help people?

Recently, the Art III Drawing and Painting students finished up a project that was used not only to inspire them, but their muses as well.

“I wanted my students to learn what it means to create artwork, not just for themselves, but to show that it can be beneficial for other people and used to do good things,” Mrs. Ashley Bailey said.

Through an organization entitled The Memory Project, students created portraits of children in Thailand who had been neglected, abused, or orphaned. Often, the Thai children had no other personal possessions as they were taken from abused households or were orphaned, and the paintings served as a valuable keepsake which some will keep for years to come.

“Rather than thinking about what it would mean for the child in the future, I just focused on what she would feel like when she got the painting, and how special it would be for her to know that someone does care for her,” Oriana Leon ‘17 said.

With nothing but a photograph of the child they were painting to aid them, they spent over six weeks rendering portraits that were meant to last a lifetime using the alla prima technique. In the alla prima technique, artists use acrylic paint and paint a layer upon wet layer, which can be difficult to accomplish due to the fast drying quality of acrylic paint.

“Using the alla prima technique was initially difficult because we couldn’t plan our painting beforehand and make a pencil sketch but I found that it was really abstract and unique, and that’s what made the painting so beautiful,” Lauren Price ‘17 said.

In order to get a better feel about the region for which they were painting for, the art students participated in a discussion about the conditions in Thailand and what it would be like to live in such an area. The discussion was an eye opener for some and led them to put more of themselves in their project.

“When we first had a discussion about what life was like in Thailand, I realized how many privileges that I am lucky enough to have and how much I take for granted, ” Jael Alarcon ‘17 said.