Coloring Outside Lines: Children’s Art Shows Grow in Sophistication : Exhibits: There’s not a macaroni-covered paper cup in sight at a most revealing display of school projects at the Brea Civic & Cultural Center.

The rules governing art in the classroom used to be simple but ironclad: color trees green, apples red and always, always stay inside the lines.

Happily, times have changed. At “My World of Art and Welcome to It,” 200 Brea school kids show that the boundaries of children’s art have stretched quite a bit. The exhibit, which features paintings, sculpture and multimedia works by students in grades kindergarten through 12 continues at the Brea Civic & Cultural Center Gallery through Friday.

There isn’t a macaroni-covered pencil cup to be seen among the nearly 150 pieces on display. Instead, visitors will find a wide variety of themes and media, ranging from pencil sketches of rock stars and tennis shoes to a tongue-in-cheek tempera of Van Gogh’s “Self Portrait.”

“I think a lot of us were very structured when we went to school,” noted gallery supervisor Marie Sofi, coordinator of the show. “Today, students get much more exposure to art; they approach it more as fine art rather than a craft.”

Entries for the show were collected during the 1988-89 school year from nine participating schools; Arovista, Country Hills, Fanning, Laurel, Mariposa, Olinda and St. Angela Merici elementary schools; Brea Junior High School and Brea-Olinda High School. Each school was allowed to submit no more than 25 pieces for the show.

The young artists were given virtual carte blanche in selecting their style and content, said Sofi.

“This show was designed to let children express their own creativity without any guidelines,” she said. “They were to do a work of art that best represented their feelings. The only criteria was to be as self-expressive as they could be.”

Michelle DeShields, 7, of Laurel Elementary had no problem with that. Her crayon and felt pen drawing “Colorful Violin Man” fairly wears his heart on his sleeve. Clad in a Technicolor coat, he fiddles away in front of a low wall on which a tender message is neatly inscribed “Josh Michelle.”

Patriotism, not romance, may have been on the mind of Beth Leverette, 8, of St. Angela Merici when she created her clay sculpture, “Lincoln.” The bust, complete with Honest Abe’s generous ears and trademark mole, shows surprising craftsmanship and attention to detail.

And speaking of famous figures, if the ghost of Vincent van Gogh were to visit the show, he would probably get a laugh from Judy Simon’s tempera painting. With her “Dude in Blue,” the 11-year-old from Laurel School has lightened up the artist’s moody “Self Portrait,” substituting his unsettling gaze for a puckish grin, and his somber garb for a suit of electric blue.

Oscar Castro, 10, of Arovista shows a sense of humor, too. His papier-mache fish, painted in vivid blue, orange and purple and ballooned to the size of a small basketball, stares pop-eyed at the viewer. Its title: “After a Meal.”

But the mood is not entirely light. Two students at the Mariposa school, Khai Vo, 12, and Gypsy Schoonover, 9, introduce a sense of melancholy you don’t often see in a children’s art show. Vo’s chalk drawing, “The Last Boy,” strikes a painful chord with anyone who has ever been left behind. In watercolor and crayon, Schoonover’s “Cyclone” imbues us with a sense of foreboding.

Some Olinda School students found their creative outlets in castoffs and everyday items. Crumpled aluminum foil became three-dimensional gymnasts, dancers and animals in the hands of one class, and a variety of fall leaves were transformed into seasonal images, like Priya Padulle’s “Thanksgiving Turkey.” Even the old stand-bys--toothpicks, paper plates and spray paint--took on a new look in sculptures like Amit Battish and Robbie Brown’s “Alien Nation.”

The art of paper construction--sort of a sophisticated form of “snowflake cutting”--is demonstrated by several Brea Junior High students. From two shades of blue construction paper, Eric Stephens, 15, cut dozens of bold, identical patterns then arranged them in rows on paper, creating a striking combination of positive/negative images.

With stippled ink, two Brea-Olinda High School students, Chaeli Prichard, 17, and Eric Engwell, 18, take viewers on a journey from the desert to the sea. Prichard’s “Desert” features a towering cactus against a backdrop of drifting clouds; Engwell’s “Surfing” captures the moment just before a surfer is engulfed in a thundering wave.

“Kids don’t always have a lot of different materials to work with in school,” noted Sofi, who has led children’s art workshops at the gallery, “So we try to teach them that you don’t need the best tools to create a work of art. It’s amazing what they come up with.”

“My World of Art and Welcome to It” continues through Oct. 27 at the Brea Civic & Cultural Center Gallery, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. Free docent tours are available to school and community groups by appointment. Gallery admission is free. Hours are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.; Thursday, noon to 8 p.m. Information: (714) 990-7730.