Students at Greenville High were doing some drawing on May 2 and it wasn’t on paper or canvas.

Stacey Edwards’ advanced art students were creating masterpieces in chalk on the

sidewalks of the school’s courtyard, bringing a little touch of Paris and the Old Masters to the Camellia City.

Willie Brooks, Jr. &uot;sculpted&uot; a portrait of Michaelangelo’s &uot;David&uot; in soft pastels while Edwards herself drew the lady with the enigmatic smile, Da Vinci’s &uot;Mona Lisa&uot;.

Cherie Mills created a floral tribute to painter Georgia O’Keefe and Joe Duncan crafted a pastel copy of surrealist Salvador Dali’s &uot;Persistence of Memory.&uot;

Chris McGough and Kelcius Savage chose more modern subjects, that of slain rappers, Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, while Brandon Burnette created a genial portrait of famed baseball player Sammy Sosa.

The sidewalk art project was part of the very first GHS art festival, officially called the ‘Ya Gotta Have Art!’ Festival (named after the slogan printed on an apron former GHS art teacher Priscilla Davis often wore for art class).

&uot;The sidewalk drawings turned out to be really beautiful and we plan on doing it again next year

– we started very, very small but we hope to expand things next year,&uot; says Edwards.

In fact, the art instructor has ambitious plans for the future of the visual arts in the Camellia City.

&uot;We hope to include other schools, including Fort Dale, in this festival in the future and possibly have a community wide art show,&uot; Edwards explains. She also wants to invite former GHS art students to showcase some of their own art, either something from their student days or a more current creation.

&uot;We might do a ‘dollar bill’ show – that’s one where each artist puts in a piece of art no larger than a dollar bill,&uot; Edwards says.

In the meantime, she is gearing up for the student’s year-end art show, which runs May 13-20 at the high school.

&uot;This is a culmination of this year’s best artwork, so we invite everyone to come out and take a look at our students’ drawings and paintings,&uot; Edwards says.

And it’s been another banner year for the GHS Art Department. Her students swept the recent LBW art competition and took home four scholarships. Student Joe Duncan was awarded second place in the State Junior Federal Duck Stamp Program and went on to win the very prestigious 2nd Congressional District Art Award.

For the next year, Duncan’s artwork will hang alongside the work of other top student artists inside the U.S. Capitol.

&uot;I am so proud of Joe and my other students who have won awards and scholarships. They’ve worked hard and deserve this recognition,&uot; says Edwards.