Mona Jain Middle of Lakewood Ranch hosts its second annual Art Show

Katherine Lo, a seventh grader in digital art, created a piece inspired by video games and titled the game she created "Knight's Revenge." She generated the background using artificial intelligence.

Ava Hempfling, a sixth grade student, loves the ocean and wants to be a marine biologist someday. She decided to draw her favorite animal in the sea- two tiger sharks surrounding her favorite flower, a hibiscus. She used pencils and watercolor paint and three class periods to create it.

Nathan Craw, a seventh grader, created two pieces involving planets. The earth piece used triangles and was created using Adobe Illustrator. The smaller piece represents water vs fire and was created using Photoshop.

Mollie Schaeffer, an eighth grader at Mona Jain, created three pieces that go together. The top is a realistic city landscape, the middle is abstract and the bottom is a nonobjective version of the same concept.

Sally Eckelman, a seventh grade student, created a digital art piece with balloons representing a harsh breakup. The balloon with a top hat represents a man who is disinterested, while the popped balloon girl who is floating away represents her whole world shattering.

Mariella Martinez Reyes, a seventh grade student who plays violin, and Elizabeth Argo, an eighth grader who plays viola, provide musical entertainment while visitors look at the art.

Amelia Evancic, Denise Mueller, Katelyn Reyes and Scarlett Evancic have been planning the logistics of the art show or creating art for it since August.

Nicasia Fayer, an eighth grader, thinks manatees are cute and has always wanted to pet them. She used acrylic markers, pencil and black pen.

Alexa Pressimone, a seventh grader, created a picture of an otter in Adobe Illustrator by tracing over a photo of an otter using shadows to determine where different colors were needed.

Father Nicolas Alvarado, brother Diego Alvarado, seventh grade artist Olivia Alvarado and mother Cristina Urizar enjoy looking at the art. Olivia Alvarado created the two arctic wolf pieces and her father Nicolas said he is in awe of her talent and doesn't know where she got it from.

Olivia Alvarado, a seventh grader at Mona Jain, says arctic wolves remind her of the moon and she loves the moon. The top piece is a colorful, abstract version of a wolf, while the bottom was created to be more realistic.

Mona Jain siblings Matthew Lo (6th), Katherine Lo(7th) and their mother Stacy Chen enjoy checking out all the art, but especially the video game inspired piece made by Katherine.

Mollie Schaeffer and Avery Wienczkowski are both eighth graders who worked together to create a bright and colorful piece with planets featuring a bull, their school's mascot. Schaeffer said they wanted it to be cartoonish and used bold outlines to make it pop.

Avery Wienczkowski, an eighth grader, used jellyfish as her inspiration and created one piece that is realistic, one that is abstract and one that in nonobjective.

Scarlett Evancis, a seventh grade student, chose to create pieces of wasps. The piece on the left is more realistic with the coloring and fluff shown. The one on the right is more abstract, with her using sharp angles and more separation between the colors to show they are a feared insect.

Sophia De La Cruz wanted to piece to give off summery, 80's retro vibes. Her goal was to create it to be like an old worn out shirt. She used Photoshop and it to her five days to make while watching tutorials.

Amelia Evancic, a seventh grade student, took inspiration from the 1847 painting "The Fallen Angel" by French artist Alexandre Cabanel. Evancic says she prefers pencil over any other art supply because it allows more freedom to make mistakes.

Elizabeth Argo, an eighth grader who plays viola, was asked the day of the art show during second period to perform at the art show.

Katelyn Reyes, digital arts and technology teacher, says the art at the show was a year's worth in the making and she has enjoyed "watching the kiddos blossom into the artists that they are." The show served as a fundraiser for the department to pay for new art supplies, field trips and more.

Aiden Storey, a 6th grader at Mona Jain, created two pieces in Photoshop for the show. The smaller features Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. The second piece was created by spinning a wheel to determine it was to be an arctic scene using white blue and yellow as the colors to represent his birthday, which is April 18.

Mariella Martinez Reyes, a seventh grade student, has been playing violin for six years. She says she wants to do it for the rest of her life and dreams to go to a school such as Juilliard.

Denise Mueller, middle school traditional art teacher, and Katelyn Reyes, middle school digital art teacher, have been planning the art show since the beginning of the school year. Mueller says seeing all the art up together was a "proud mama moment."