Using a wood-carving tool, Brianna McGinley carefully chipped away at a piece of sculpture foam.

"I think I'm going to try to make an ear," the senior said Friday afternoon during her sculpture class at College Hill High, 510 N.W. 31st St. "An ear for some kind of animal because I really like animals."

A few moments earlier, instructor Amy Doeringer had shown McGinley how to sand the foam down and use a clay wire tool to make cuts in the foam.

McGinley and 23 other College Hill students are benefiting from a $45,000 anonymous donation that has allowed the school, the district's alternative education school, to offer a more structured art program than in the 2008-09 school year, when students received art instruction through a mentoring program.

The donation enabled the Corvallis Art Center to hire Doeringer and Aaron Frohnmayer, who are both teaching assistants at the center, to teach at College Hill and pay for all the supplies.

This semester, the program is offering two classes; Frohnmayer is teaching introduction to art class, and Doeringer is teaching beginning sculpture. The 90-minute classes are held Fridays for two classes of 12 students each.

Plans for next semester include offering a ceramics class at the Corvallis Arts Center so students can take advantage of the center's equipment.

"We are limited in what we can do here," Doeringer said. "It would be hard for us to bring a pottery wheel here."

That hasn't stopped students from having fun. Doeringer's students recently completed the first of three projects: to make a mask of clay and wire. Friday, they were experimenting with the sculpture foam in preparation for their next project, making shrines of something personal to them.

"Amy's been introducing a lot of fun and interesting stuff," said junior Austin Whipple. "But sometimes it can be really to hard to do some things like make things into certain shapes."

Doeringer, who has spent the past year working mainly with elementary and middle-school students through the Corvallis Arts Center's after-school programs, said working with high school students has been rewarding.

"With older kids, it's more about the process of doing things, not producing things," Doeringer said. "Younger kids want something solid they can take home. But for these kids, it's about having an outlet for their creative energy."

As for the ear McGinley was trying to sculpt: When it was done, it turned out to be an eyeball for a frog.