Students in Sue Anne Hoyt’s Art Appreciation class at Jefferson State Community College in Clanton had the opportunity to draw outside Tuesday.

“We thought it would be a fun event to have the students take their art outside today,” Hoyt said.

Hoyt said Clanton Campus Division Chair Ashley Kitchens was instrumental in coming up with the idea for the students to have a unique project to work on.

“Ashley was really great and wanted the students to be able to do something different,” Hoyt said. “It is just a fun day to get outside.”

Hoyt said the school is also celebrating Freedom Week Oct. 19-23, which brings awareness to ending modern-day slavery.

Freedom Week teaches students about human trafficking and provides opportunities for students to become educated on the topic.

Hoyt said she brought images of butterflies for the students to study prior to taking their creative ideas outside.

“I showed them different ideas they could do for pictures they could draw,” Hoyt said. “We have also been covering cave paintings and graffiti as art so this all plays into what we have been covering in class.”

Students were each given a box of sidewalk chalk and told they could draw whatever they wanted on the sidewalk in front of the school’s campus.

Holly Locke chose to draw a fairy after dealing with several deaths recently.

“Several people that were close to me passed away, and I like to think of them like fairies,” Locke said.

Locke said she has enjoyed learning about using graffiti as an art form in the class.

“There is a connection people can have to art,” Locke said. “When they see something you have drawn, it can touch them in a way. It is also a good reliever of stress or anger or any hate you might have.”

Kristen Endress was drawing a symbol for Autism Awareness in honor of her cousin who has autism.

“I think it is a lot of fun to be able to come outside and draw,” Endress said.

Friends Marissa Muir, Savannah Parrish and Jessalyn Davis said they had not been encouraged to draw on the sidewalk with chalk since elementary school.

“We have gotten to learn about a lot of different art techniques,” Muir said. “Plus, to be given the option to come outside and draw on the sidewalk is pretty cool.”

Hoyt said during the semester, the class would cover how good art is put together, learn about visual elements and visual design, take two art museum visits and write a paper on a famous artwork.