Grass Lake Elementary is literally covered in art.

Student created works are all over the walls from one end of the school to the other and while they were initially put up for the Gator Gallery Art Walk on March 15 they will remain the rest of the school year, according to Karin Deti, parent and chair of the school’s art docent committee.

“I just got confirmation from the principal (on Monday) that we can keep all the artwork up,” Deti said. “That’s not something we normally get to do.”

Deti coordinated the art walk which included artist demonstrations, music, an appearance by cast members of Kentlake High School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast” as well as hands on art projects for youngsters.

It is an extension of the school’s art docent program, Deti explained, which has about 20 parents who volunteer. The program is affiliated with the Interurban Center for the Arts which is part of the Green River Community Arts Foundation.

“This is kind of a really easy, step by step program,” Deti said. “I’m not an artist, either, but I love having art in the schools. There’s a lot of freedom within the program and we have some moms who are really creative who come up with some amazing projects.”

Each docent comes up with a lesson and a project to do once a month. The school is supplied with a packet of art posters, Deti said, and each poster comes with information about the specific artist and project ideas to do with students.

“After we do a project the parent and teacher talk about how successful it was and put together a sample,” Deti said. “Every year these packets get rotated through the districts. The whole idea is to expose kids to all sorts of different artists.”

To build on that, the docent committee offered the Gator Gallery Art Walk, which provided students a chance to display the art they had made in class with the volunteers as well as get a chance to learn even more about art from local artists. This was the third annual art walk.

Deti said the committee hoped to get parents of all the different grade levels to circulate throughout the school so student art was not posted near their classrooms. Instead it was displayed all over, with kindergarten work put up in the fit and sixth grade wing, for example.

They did a scavenger hunt to get the kids to walk all over the school and, Deti said, they tried something new by inviting artists to give demonstrations in the school gym.

One of the art docents, Deti said, grew up with parents who are water color artists.

Mary Ellen Bowers, the art liaison to the schools, did a presentation where she cut up credit cards and gift cards to create collages.

And there was Tahoma High graduate Iris Scott, whose finger painting style is becoming a sensation, who demonstrated her methods. More about Scott and her work can be seen on her website, www.irisfingerpainting.com.

Students also had the opportunity to make art trading cards.

“It’s new to us,” Deti said. “One of our art docent moments has taken this on and comes at least three times a month. We open up a room during recess and the kids can flit in and out of this room and create an art trading card.”

The concept, Deti said, is to create a piece of art on a trading card size piece of paper. This has become a world wide phenomenon, she added, and there were tables where youngsters could work on their own trading cart artwork.

“That was really successful,” Deti said. “We had six artists come. I was just really thrilled with that.”

Deti, who took on this event for the first time this year, was pleased on Monday afternoon with the way the event came together.

“It went really, really well,” Deti said. “We tried some new things this year and they were pretty big changes with the artists in action. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback and I was very pleased with it personally.”

And though the art walk happened just days ago, Deti is thinking about the fourth annual event, she said.

“I’m starting to brainstorm for next year to see about getting more kids to the event,” she said. “I feel like we had a fairly good turnout. The school looked beautiful. And we ended right on time. I was very, very happy with it.”