Artists of the Future Get a Showing in Laguna Beach Now : Talent: Works by 500 county students--selected by jury from more than 4,000--are on display this week at the Art Institute of Southern California.

The wildflowers aren’t the only things blooming in Laguna Canyon this week.

The talents of 500 budding Orange County artists are showcased in “Color It Orange,” a juried exhibit of student art at the Art Institute of Southern California here. The 16th annual show, sponsored by AISC support group Designing Women, continues through April 20.

More than 4,000 2-D and 3-D works were submitted this year by students in 214 elementary, junior high and high schools, said Doretta Ensign, a Designing Women volunteer. A three-member jury, which included retired art dealer Richard Challis and Laguna-based artists Leah Vasquez and Richard Arthur White, made the final selections.

Techniques and media on display range from a kindergartner’s crayon sketch to high school students’ works in Prismacolor and charcoal. Themes are equally varied, including everything from simple portraits to somewhat jarring abstracts.

“It hardly enters your mind that this is student work,” said Ensign, who spent 27 years as a junior high and high school art instructor. “Some of it is as good as anything you’d see in a private gallery. And the thoughts these young people have and the approach they take in expressing them is really remarkable.”

Although there was no top prize given, 10 “Color It Orange” participants were awarded AISC scholarships, each valued at about $300 and good for a five-week overview to be held on the campus this summer. Honorable mention certificates were awarded to an additional 50 students. All “Color It Orange” participants were honored at the gallery Saturday at a private reception.

“It’s so refreshing to see the variety of styles from the various grades,” noted juror Challis, who reviewed works by students in kindergarten through sixth grade. “The kindergartners are very honest and free; they’re not too influenced by a teacher’s directions. But as they go up in grades, the students tend to become more tight, more controlled, less confident. It seems to suggest that the ability to be a creative artist is largely inborn.”

The adults who help shape that ability deserve a great deal of credit too, added Challis.

“A good art instructor has an enormous influence on young artists,” he said.

In whimsical “Down by the Bay,” kindergartners from Yorba Linda’s Mabel Paine Elementary School invite viewers to look at the sea through a child’s eyes. On fabric squares, they illustrated such questions as “Did you ever see a whale with a polka-dot tail?” and “Did you ever see a fish blowing a kiss?,” then stitched the works into a large patchwork quilt. Second- and third-graders at Santa Ana’s Lowell Elementary School took a similar approach, creating a crazy quilt of self-portraits with the confident title “Si Yo Quiero, Yo Puedo” (“If I want, I can”).

Scholarship winners included London Perry, 17, an Orange High School senior, and Tung Le, 18, a senior at Santa Ana High School. In his Prismacolor “Sophisticate,” Perry depicts an azure-eyed, raven-haired beauty with a bearing that hints of high teas at the Ritz-Carlton. Contrasting with this is Le’s “The Old Lady,” a weary but defiant crone who glares at the viewer with steely eyes.

Seemingly inspired by the art that typifies heavy-metal album covers, Michael Swingler’s “Portrait of a White Supremacist” is a jarring work in colored pencil. Swingler, 17, of Laguna Hills High School, created a bizarre, octopus-like character whose tentacles entwine an electric guitar and whose face is masked by a glittering knight’s helmet. Behind him cavort dozens of intricate figures--some angelic, some demonic.

Eight-year-old Jessica Edwards, on the other hand, seems to draw her inspiration from artist David Hockney. In “The City,” Edwards, a student at Newport Beach’s Mariners Christian School, uses vivid tempera and felt pens to create skyscrapers of flamingo pink and sea-foam green reaching toward a purple sky. Garett McIntyre, 10, of Crown Valley Elementary School in Laguna Niguel, seems to be headed toward a promising career with the local Chamber of Commerce. In his “Life in Orange County,” McIntyre trumpets such local attractions as Disneyland, the Crystal Cathedral, Knott’s Berry Farm and, tucked way off in the corner, a tiny grove of orange trees.

Three-dimensional pieces on display include “Osiris,” an Egyptian-themed plaster mask by Courtney Morris, 13, of Fountain Valley’s Moiola School, and a ceramic vase in shades of cream and blue by 17-year-old Cresta Nielsen of El Toro High School.

“Color It Orange,” featuring the work of 500 Orange County students, will continue through Friday at the Art Institute of Southern California, 2222 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Admission is free. Group tours are available. Gallery hours are Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information, call (714) 497-3309.