Art after Dark: Students create nighttime, glow-in-the-dark art

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Students and parents brought flashlights and explored caves, the deep sea, outer space and the jungles of Panama in “Art After Dark” at Dean Road Elementary School Monday evening.

All art, created by students at Dean Road, is meant to be seen after nightfall.

Black lights were strong throughout the school to light up the pieces that were done with fluorescent watercolors, chalk and tempura paint. The art was based on each grade level’s in-class curriculum.

“It’s sort of nice to take what they are working on and using it in a different way,” said Alicha Hames, art teacher at Dean Road.

First graders worked on deep sea art, second graders nocturnal animals, third grade rocks and minerals, fourth grade Central America and fifth graders made space art.

CD players were placed in each hall provided sound effects. For first grade, whale calls were used, for the fourth grade, crickets chirped.

“It helps the kids learn in a better way,” Hames said.

Bill Hames, a geologist at Auburn University and Alicha’s husband, brought in fluorescent rocks (rocks that glow fluorescent naturally under black light), to the event.

He helped his wife come up with the idea after a trip he took to Singapore where he visited a nocturnal zoo called “The Night Safari.”

“When I came home and told her about that she kind of came up with the idea,” he said. “It’s very engaging.”

Fifth graders created pieces called “Starry Night Over Auburn” that resembled Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece “Starry Night.”

Except the student’s art had Auburn Tigers prowling under the nighttime sky.

“It’s very cool, it’s very neat,” said fifth-grade student Jack Smith, who said his favorite part about “Art After Dark” was making and painting the artwork.

“I think that viewing the art in the dark makes it more interesting…in the black light,” said Natalie Smith, Jack’s mother. “I liked it very much, he made it his own. He put wrestlers names in his art piece.”

First grade student Amelia Best said her favorite part of the event was “the glow-in-the- dark.”

“It was special,” Kallie Best, Amelia’s mother, said. “I was impressed how they tied it all together,” she said referring to the progression of the art throughout the school.

Hames said she tries to leave the art up as long as she can, but since it is the end of the school year, it will only remain up a few more days.

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