Photos by Deb Gau Kyra Zieske, at right, uses a fingertip to blend colors in a pastel drawing Friday at the Young Artists Conference at Southwest Minnesota State University.

MARSHALL — Young artists participated in hands-on art classes on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University on Friday.

In one classroom, kids were experimenting with shading as they made brightly-colored pastel drawings.

“It’s really easy to blend it,” said Canby Elementary student Jaxon Ruether said.

Some students were using cotton swabs to blend colors in their drawings — but most were using their fingertips.

“I’m just using my pinky finger,” said Renville student Kyra Zieske.

She was smudging together pastels to help make a sunset background for her drawing.

Hundreds of kids from area schools spent Friday trying out new art techniques and craft projects at SMSU, during the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative’s annual Young Artists Conference.

“We are excited to hold our second in person conference this year,” said Andrea Anderson, student enrichment coordinator with SWWC. “We have some awesome presenters ready to share their knowledge and talent with the kids. The students, staff and presenters are very excited to be back in person doing hands-on learning. We have missed seeing the kids and all their energy and excitement.”

While this week’s severe cold postponed the conference from Thursday to Friday and prevented some students from attending, there was still a lot of interest in the event. Anderson said more than 500 people from 16 school districts had originally registered for the conference.

Students spent the day attending different sessions covering art forms ranging from printmaking to origami, and even dance. In one session, a group of Russell-Tyler-Ruthton students were making tessellations — patterns of repeating shapes — out of construction paper. Payton Zaske and some of her classmates made colorful paper belts out of the shapes.

“A lot of us made crowns, but then they were too big,” Zaske explained.

Conference presenters said it was good to see area kids learning and being creative.

“I hope we get excited about art,” keynote speaker John Sterner told students. Sterner, a southwest Minnesota artist and teacher, talked to students about some of the different art forms he’s worked on.

Sterner has several sculptures on display in Marshall, including the large mustang sculpture on the SMSU campus. He also shared some of his paintings with students.

Sterner said making art had taught him some other important skills, like how to handle making mistakes.

“I tell kids, mistakes happen,” he said. “When we make art, we make mistakes.”

Sterner said art has taught him a lot over the years. “It’s been something I used all my life,” he said.