Artwork by seven Bob Jones High School students has been accepted for the Southeast Regional Art Competition at Birmingham-Southern College.

The Bob Jones finalists are Hannah Delp, Anne Peyton Ellis, Lorin Franklin, Lauren Handley, Chad Hasting, Allison Sloan and D. Brent Wilhide.

Teacher Robin Lakso was allowed to submit work from 10 students to Birmingham-Southern for adjudication. The Bob Jones artists worked in charcoal, graphite, paints, pastels and mixed media.

This semester, Lakso and Elizabeth Vaughn are teaching about 600 students in Bob Jones’ visual art program. Next semester, Jennifer Norton will return to class from maternity leave.

Lakso and her colleagues teach art step by step, similar to learning to read. Students first need to learn “the alphabet, then little words until they can finally write an award-winning novel, except they learn the visual elements of art and principles of design before they can produce award-winning work,” Lakso said.

“Any time students are able to exhibit their work, they feel a sense of pride and accomplishment of the many long hours spent in creating their personal artworks,” Lakso said.

“In his work titled ‘Divorce,’ Brent Wilhide describes his project as life literally unraveling because of his parents’ divorce,” Lakso said.

Alli Sloan’s forte is working with pastels on tissue paper. “I tried it when another student suggested it. Now, I love it so much I want to keep making more pieces like this,” Sloan said. Her competition artwork shows a gleam of light streaming through a huge tree.

The competition’s award ceremony and art exhibit will be held on Jan. 8 at 2 p.m. in the Norton Student Center at Birmingham-Southern, followed by a catered reception in the Durbin Gallery in the Doris Wainwright Kennedy Art Center.

In other honors, the University of Alabama has invited Bob Jones art students to exhibit their work at the Sella-Granata Gallery from Jan. 10 through Feb. 11. Craig Wedderspoon with the UA Art Department said theri invitation for the second consecutive year is “unprecedented.”

For more information, visit bsc.edu/academics/art.