Cody McDonald, 17, a senior at South Warren High School, said he always drew but never took it seriously until his sophomore year in high school.

He has moved from not taking it seriously to selling pieces of his artwork. He has been selling pieces in a series he calls “The Degradation of Reality and the Continuation of Life.”

“I’ve been making a series of these floating island ideas. They have over-exaggerated features like super large trees or super large mountains,” he said. “It’s like set in space. I’ve made a lot of these and had a lot of things in them. Nature’s taking over.”

McDonald will be showing his final piece in the series, “The Last One,” alongside peers at South Warren as well as other Warren County schools at The Presbyterian Church, 1003 State St., during the Bowling Green Gallery Hop.

The event, which will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, also features artwork from students at South Warren Middle School, Greenwood High School, Warren Central High School, Warren East High School, Warren East Middle School and Drakes Creek Middle School, according to Linda Seagle, chairwoman of the art board at The Presbyterian Church. The exhibit will be displayed through Dec. 1. The public can view the artwork from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.

Seagle said it’s “wonderful” that the youths of Warren County have the opportunity to showcase their artwork.

“A lot of these (students) will take this experience the rest of their lives. They will derive a great joy,” she said. “I wish all the schools could’ve participated in it. I’m delighted that we had seven that could make the commitment.”

Some of the pieces will be for sale, Seagle said.

“If the kids want to sell their artwork that’s fine. There’ll be a huge range of prices, all very affordable,” she said. “So far I see as little at $10 to $150. There could be some less or more than that.”

The church has a finite space, so each school could only submit nine pieces, Seagle said.

“The teachers juried that. The number may fluctuate because some of them may not have wanted to submit that many,” she said. “We wish we could handle more than that. I’m really excited to meet some of these kids.”

The idea for the exhibit came from the church’s art liaison, Shannon Dyche, Seagle said.

“She is in charge of acquiring multiple arts for the Gallery Hop. She has been interested in community outreach. It gets harder because we have shown many artists repeatedly,” she said. “We want to show the talent we have in this area, so we said why not the youth? With any successful program I think the younger you expose people and entice them the more accomplished they become, the more experience they gain.”

Casey Bates, an art teacher at South Warren High School, said she opened the exhibit to any one of her upper-level students who wanted to participate.

“We were so excited. This is the first time since I’ve been at South Warren that a location has asked us to participate,” she said. “(The students) feel awesome to have a show with professional artists who do this for a living. The majority of the artwork at the Gallery Hop will be professional artists.”

Kandice Kilcoyne, an art teacher at Drakes Creek Middle School, said she looked for a good differentiation of projects the students have done so far when choosing artwork to display and was happy to hear about the exhibit.

“With it being close to the beginning of the year, we haven’t gotten a lot done so far. We’ve been doing two-dimensional work – watercolors, drawing and painting,” she said. “I was really excited because I thought it would be a good way to exhibit art in the community.”

McDonald doesn’t see doing artwork as a job.

“It’s kind of like seeing bits of yourself sold off. You end up selling your time,” he said. “I put a lot of myself into my artwork, as much as I can.”

— For more information about the Bowling Green Gallery Hop, which includes more than a dozen locations, visit bggalleryhop.com or the event’s Facebook page.

— Follow features reporter Alyssa Harvey on Twitter @bgdnfeatures or visit bgdailynews.com.