The Manteca Unified Best of the Best Art Show and Sale continues to get bigger and better.

Credit local arts students such as Rochelle Felt and Mellyn Bingham for their involvement of the Art Invasion program at elementary school sites.

“We’ve been teaching zentangle to them,” said Felt, who is a Sierra High junior currently in AP Studio Art of the learning method of creating images of repetitive patterns to the sixth- through- eighth- grade students at Brock Elliott Elementary School.

According to Lathrop High AP Art teacher Erika Chapman — she also serves on the district Art Committee — Felt and Bingham are among the 20 high school students currently teaching art to the next generation.

The drawings of the junior high students were added to the district Art Show, which again featured the finest works of students in Ceramics, 3D Art, Digital Photography, AP 2D Studio Art, Intro to Art, Advanced Art, to name a few.

Felt, who was inspired to become an art teacher from her recent experience, earned a first-place Best of the Best Art Show ribbon for her painting using oils to paint the two joining hands and acrylics for the background.

“It’s a personal piece,” she said, adding that the painting is not for sale (students have that option, Chapman noted).

Meanwhile, Sergio Tapia took home Best in Show and Best of the Best honors for his Advanced Digital Photo Portrait of his Uncle Juan on a recent hiking trip.

“It’s the detail in his work that stands out,” said his Lathrop High Photography teacher Kellie MacKinnon.

Tapia, who is a senior, plans to continue pursuing career in photography after graduation.

“I’m going to a junior college and would like to someday take photographs for a magazine,” he said.

Tapia worked construction for about a month and a half to earn money to buy own camera.

Since then, he’s been kept busy as the school’s unofficial photographer.

“Sergio took the staff photo and he also does Student of the Month photos for Lathrop High,” MacKinnon said.