General Art, one of the many electives offered at Kalani High School, is about strengthening your technical skill in art.

“General art is not focused on one type of medium. You can sew and we’ve also done oil pastels,” said Charlotte Nguyen, a student in General Art. “As long as you can draw basic shapes, you’re able to piece everything together.”

The teacher, Ms. Katasako will assign one project and the students work on it individually in class until the due date. The students have a lot of freedom, according to Nguyen.

“She doesn’t give you an exact format. You have a lot of freedom for what you can do with your drawings,” Nguyen said.

After every project, the students need to write a reflection about the types of mediums they used and areas they can improve on. There are also academic requirements.

“There is one slide-show presentation project about different areas of art, like the Realism Period or the Surrealism Period,” Nguyen said.

Prospective students also want to know how difficult the class is and how the work is graded.

“The class is graded based on the level of effort you put into the work and your technical skill — if you’ve used the proper shading techniques, if the form looks right, if everything looks proportional,” Nguyen explained.

The class is popular with students and offered at levels 1, 2 and 3.  People who are not technically good at art can still have fun.

“It really lets me challenge myself to learn the technical skills that I need to become an artist,” Nguyen said. “I get to push outside of my boundaries.”