MATTAPOISETT — Monsters filled the Mattapoisett Free Public Library. They sat on shelves and windowsills. They ganged up on a table.

They were ceramic creations of students at Old Rochester Regional High School.

Students from several art classes have put their work on exhibit at the library. The display includes the monster sculptures dotting the entire reading room and two-dimensional pieces sitting atop shelves around the perimeter.

A reception for the exhibit, called “Visual Voices: A Sampling of Student Artwork from ORRHS,” was held Saturday, Nov. 16.

Freshman Trillian White’s piece was a color mandala wheel watercolor painting. After creating the design of the overall circle, White painted the sections in different colors — and different tones of those colors inside each section.

“I feel like I learned how to control the watercolor more,” White said.

White said she was very happy with the painting and that it was an interesting assignment.

“I found it was interesting to learn how to use the colors,” she said.

For the monster sculptures, art teacher Jo Mogilnicki said students were asked to make hollow forms out of clay and transform them, through additions and subtractions, into some kind of monster figure.

Students were encouraged “to pick and choose and make additions to their monsters to bring them to life,” Mogilnicki said.

Students even physically felt their own faces in order to understand structure for crafting the features of the “imaginary but lifelike” figures, Mogilnicki said.

Before the show at the Mattapoisett Library, students were asking when they could take their open-mouthed monster creations home, according to Mogilnicki.

“They like their work,” she said. “That’s the big thing.”

For the two-dimensional projects, art teacher Kate Butler said students came up with an “inquiry question that they want to explore through their artistic medium.”

Then they looked at other artists who used similar concepts, materials or techniques in their works.

“It’s really anything that they can find inspiration from,” Butler said.

The students then worked to create a “visual response to their inquiry question,” Butler said.

The fact that the projects were designed by the students themselves led to a “great variety of work,” according to Butler.

Another watercolor painting on exhibit was a piece depicting a jellyfish by sophomore Isabel Govoni.

The design of the jellyfish was outlined in pencil, and Govoni also utilized a technique called “wet on wet,” meaning wet paint applied to wet paint or paper, she had learned from watching a video online.

The background of the piece looks similar to tie-dye, according to Govoni.

“I wanted the abstract look to it,” she said.

The “Visual Voices” exhibit will be on display at the Mattapoisett Library until Nov. 30.