Avon High Art Students Get Messy for Art's Sake

To the casual observer, the latest projects by students in Karen Busch's art class at may look like simply squiggles, drips and smudges.

But there's more than meets the eye.

The action painting project challenges students to channel their inner abstract painter, a la Jackson Pollock, to create intensely personal paintings.

Students listened to their favorite music with earbuds, and that, along with whatever emotions they were feeling, drove what they did on their board. They spattered, they dabbed, they blended with their fingers to add texture, they cut up the board to create a new shape.

The project is designed to get them to create without thinking or planning too much, Busch said, and letting them learn to stop when they see they're done.