Collaborative Effort Between Birches Elementary, Chestnut Ridge Middle School Art Students Brings Monsters to Life

For Immediate Release
June 11, 2024

Students show off the final products in the Birches/Chestnut Ridge Monsters University Pottery Project.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – They’ve had Monsters on the brain – and in the art room workstations – at Chestnut Ridge Middle School and Birches Elementary School during the 2023-24 school year. Art teachers Jeff Hull (CRMS) and Nicole Schmitt (Birches) have collaborated on what they have dubbed the Monsters University Pottery Project.

Mrs. Schmitt’s Students from Birches used their creativity to design creepy monsters in order to scare other students through their artwork. Monster designs were then given to Mr. Hull’s sixth-grade class at CRMS to work through the pottery process. 

Classes studied the pinch-hand building process to model monsters 3-dimensionally. They then carefully constructed monsters to include the scary identity and personality of the elementary students’ monster design. The young artists then applied a glazed color harmony creating the creepy finished project. These monsters will someday be professional “scarers”!

Students show off the Birches designs for the Monsters University Pottery Project.

- WTPS -