Local high school art students dedicated to their craft spent the summer learning printmaking skills to create pieces for Project Ignition, a national program that raises awareness to the risks of disabled and distracted driving, the No. 1 killer of teens in the United States.

Erika Johnson, Honolulu Printmakers' vice president, teamed with fellow member Robert Molyneux and Carole Iacovelli, executive director of Youth Service Hawaii, to educate students about the issue of disabled and distracted driving and teach concepts of advertising, visual communicaton and fine-art reduction printmaking. The upshot: One student's work would be selected as an ad poster about the issue and placed in Honolulu city buses.

In the end, six students from McKinley and Kapolei high schools completed prints.

“;These were really great students,”; Johnson raves. “;With reduction prints, you cut out layers in the areas you don't want color, then print the lightest color. Then you carve again and use the second lightest color. It goes on and on. As you can imagine, registration is pretty important in reduction printing. These are the students first reduction prints! The Honolulu Printmakers were blown away—none of our first prints came out like this.”;

The work of BreyAnna Lucero of Kapolei High was selected for bus duty. Her piece, “;Game Over,”; will be displayed on buses through October and November. Other prints will serve as bumper stickers and magnets.

All the prints will be exhibited at Pearlridge Center through Oct. 24 and at the Hawaii State Library from Oct. 27 to Nov. 7. For more information, call the Printmakers at 536-5507.