John W. Decas Elementary was packed with students eagerly tugging their parents’ and grandparents’ hands to show them the art they had made for Thursday night’s school art show.

The students, ranging from kindergarteners through second-graders, focused on self-portraits for this year’s art show, as well as some three-dimensional figure modeling, Decas art teacher Ellen Osborn said.

Osborn said the children used mirrors to look at their faces, which, she said, is difficult for young children, who usually try to include everything in their artwork. Osborn thinks it is important for children to learn self-portraiture, because “nobody knows yourself like you do.”

“They’re not just looking at their faces. It’s also about trying to get their inner self, their personality that comes out,” Osborn said. “It’s more like finding out what their essence is, what they are all about, what they really are.”

The students were also given opportunities to respectfully critique each other’s work and give their reasoning behind their opinions. Osborn said the artists remained anonymous, during the critique, but that she wanted the children to learn the difference between fact and opinion.

“Someone will say something about the artist’s work, and then the artist will say, ‘Well, that’s not really what’s happening in that picture.’ We have to know that’s somebody’s opinion,” Osborn said. “You might want somebody’s opinion, so you can get better at your artwork. You don’t have to take their opinion, but it’s nice to have other people’s input.”

The students also did some three-dimensional work, Osborn said. The kindergarteners’ work had to be something of fantasy.

“For instance, it could look like a leopard, but it would have to be something else, like have feathers, or have some other interpretation,” Osborn said. “You can’t do direct observation all the time.”

The first-graders focused on the concept of artistic license.

“I got little pieces of paper that said, ‘artistic license,’” Osborn said. “It means that you can do things the way you want, and it can be your own choice. It’s okay, it’s acceptable by all the artists throughout the world.”

Going forward, Osborn said, the students will be doing an art history unit, which includes Leonardo da Vinci for the kindergarteners, impressionist painters for the first-graders, and surrealists for the second-graders.

“Magritte, with the apple for the face -- they love that,” Osborn said.