Parkway South offers multiple art classes that cover an expansive curriculum to teach you every corner of the creative world. If you want to improve your art range, you’ve come to the right school. Year after year, our art students consistently place at the top of local art competitions, in some cases even completely sweeping the awards.

Parkway South’s art program allows students the opportunity to grow over time. Classes cover everything from painting to ceramics, photography to digital design. Students are encouraged to grow into new mediums. Even if you begin with little experience, through critiques, experimentation and guidance from teachers? Your skills can rapidly develop. By the time students have reached advanced classes, those early uncertainties have already transformed into a strong portfolio and foundation for a deeper understanding of personal artistic voice and style.

I asked Eric Ludlow, head of the art department, what changes he sees in students between their first and last art class. “I see incredible growth. One of the biggest things I see are students gaining confidence. Students start out as timid, by senior year / ap studio they’re confident, not just in their artwork but in their whole being,” Ludlow said. “Id say one of the big things is students learn is to see. Looking at the world in a different way, that’s the number one thing.”

Sophomore Mirella Timke commented on the art program. “It’s what’s made me gain a lot of friends, and has become a huge, inseparable part of my life because I know it’s something I’ll always be good at if other things don’t work out. It’s also just become a big part of my identity. Art surrounds everyone, even if they don’t realize it,” Timke said. “Any spare time I have in aclab and study hall and lunch is spent in an art class because of how enjoyable it is. I’ve never once had a bad experience or felt excluded. It’s definitely the most inclusive and positive environment in this school.”

But the program’s success isn’t measured only in medals or ribbons. It’s reflected in the culture of the classroom itself. Step into the art hallway, and you’re greeted wall-to-wall with all the work from students in its classrooms. As compared to the typically blank walls of the rest of the school, it has a more alive and even student-led feel to it. Inside of the classrooms are similar. It’d be difficult to find a blank space on the wall, all of it is covered in personality and creativity, guiding the students within it to fuel their inner artist. It’s no wonder students are able to thrive in such an open and comforting environment. Even potential critiques are difficult for art students to find.

” It’s hard to think of anything I would want to change or add, maybe more freedom on what we get to draw for drawing 1,” Timke said.

So what is our school doing that makes our art program a cut above the rest? Senior Oliver Pratt, a four-time entrant in the 2026 south area art show, says that answer can be found in the very foundation of the program “If I didn’t have art in school, I don’t know if I would’ve wanted to be here at all. The art department as far as classes, environment and teachers, has just made the school a lot more of a bearable experience for me. Without it, I don’t know, I think I’d be lost,” Pratt said.