There was no snow on the ground Friday morning, but it was nevertheless a winter wonderland at Bend’s Art Station.

There were snowmen, snow-covered trees, snowy meadows and snowflakes galore, as about a dozen students started their first day of the Thanksgiving break creating cheerful, 3-D wintry scenes from cardboard, clay and metallic paint.

“I think kids having Friday off took some families by surprise,” said Tracy Alexander, Art Station manager. “And then the high school kids still have class, so there goes all the baby sitters.”

The Art Station’s ceramic winter landscape class gave a group of 8- to 12-year-olds a chance to create a festive-looking diorama on their day off. Reusing cardboard box lids, students pulled inspiration from their own imaginations in addition to several illustrated children’s books lying on the work table.

Chance Ross, 11, dipped his paintbrush into a pool of bright yellow paint and dabbed it on the black winter night sky with which he’d filled his diorama box.

“Right now, I’m making it look like stars above,” Chance said. “I love the wintertime because I love snowball fights. I also like it because all the spiders are dead.”

Chance also added snowy mountain peaks to his winter scene and a large pale yellow moon.

Earlier in the class, students used snowflake cookie cutters to cut snowflakes out of clay. After being fired in a kiln, the white glittery snowflakes would be suspended from the roof of the diorama with fishing line to bring three-dimensionality to the landscape.

The cardboard boxes were donated to the Art Station by the Spice Shop in the Old Mill.

“If something comes our way, we get inspired by it,” Alexander said.

Connor Bellusci, 11, used his knowledge about foreground and background to create a 3-D cabin in his diorama. The cabin sat nestled behind some trees and was complete with windows that glowed — thanks to yellow glow-in-the dark paint.

“Once I got books from the library that showed how to draw 3-D stuff,” Connor said. “I just kept practicing until I got good at it.”

Connor said that winter is his favorite season because he loves building snow forts with his friends.

Students were also encouraged to flip through several winter-based children’s books for inspiration, including classics like Jan Brett’s “Trouble with Trolls” and Ezra Jack Keats’ “The Snowy Day.”

“I liked the drawings of the trees in this book,” Madeline Gardner, 8, said, pointing to the book, “Owl Moon,” by Jane Yolen. “I really liked the branches.”

True to her inspiration, Madeline’s diorama depicted the bare and scraggly branches of a tree in mid-winter set against a powder blue sky.

Gillian Rathbun, the class instructor, is a former elementary school teacher who said she likes combining art with literature at the Art Station, so students get the most out of their lessons. She even likes to squeeze in some science when possible. Earlier in the class, she had students take a look at the science book, “The Secret Life of a Snowflake” by Kenneth Libbrecht, to inspire them while making their own unique clay flakes.

“A lot of times when kids are out of school, they’re not doing a lot of in-depth activities,” Alexander said. “We like to offer them seasonal programs like this to keep them engaged with something fun and creative.”

— Reporter; 541-383-0354, mkehoe@bendbulletin.com