IN THE CLASSROOM -- Recreating the Mona Lisa

Danette Goulet

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.

It was how the Mona Lisa might have looked had Pablo Picasso painted

it.

Students transformed Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, creating both

monstrous and beautiful images.

They weren’t being disrespectful -- it was their assignment. Students

in Teri Brudnak’s digital arts class at Corona del Mar High School were

given digital copies of the Mona Lisa and told to experiment with the

Adobe Photoshop program. The day’s lesson was using transformation tools

and the horizontal and vertical flip feature.

Leo Lagno, 17, had pasted skateboarders onto Mona Lisa’s head and

blouse before the bell had even sounded to signal the beginning of class.

He copied them from the Internet, he said.

“I have all sorts of people grinding on her blouse, rolling on her

head,” Lagno said. He also planned to put a skateboard sign on her head.

In Brudnak’s book, it was A-plus work. She encourages her students to

experiment.

Most of them were up to the challenge.

Some girls had the Mona Lisa in bright lipstick and blue eye shadow.

Other students distorted her beyond recognition, twisting her

features.

Suddenly, the Mona Lisa had a sexy look on her face. Then she was

abstract, then liquid. Finally, she appeared to be carved of stone.

Grant Finster, a senior, somehow managed to make the image appear like

a welcome mat.

“This class is cool because we can do really cool stuff with this,” he

said.

And before they were ready for it to end, the bell rang and class was

over.

Not only is the state-of-the-art digital arts lab a giant step forward

in high school classrooms, it is also unusual for schools, Brudnak said.

The funding for it came from Coastline Community College, which offers a

similar class there, she said.

“I have kids that leave here and go straight into jobs or start their

own businesses,” she said.

FYI

WHO: Teri Brudnak’s digital arts students

WHAT: Learning to use Adobe Photoshop

WHERE: Corona del Mar High School

LESSON: Morphing the Mona Lisa