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Art contest tips
Timely tips to help you prepare your artwork for entry
(Note to readers: This story combines parts 1 and 2 of stories from the January and February 2010 issues that appeared on the PowerKids page.)
Art work is already arriving at the Indianapolis office of Electric Consumer for the student art contest. The winning works will illustrate the 2011 Cooperative Calendar of Student Art.
The art contest deadline is March 19. Besides having their art published in a wall calendar people all over Indiana will be enjoying all next year, the winning artists receive cash prizes!
To get you fired up for the contest, here are some ideas for students and parents and teachers helping student artists.
Fit the theme
Before beginning, a student needs to put a little thought into what the contest asks. Each grade is assigned a month to illustrate for the calendar. How well the theme is met is one of the three major criteria in judging.
Brainstorm ideas for the month and write them down. What kinds of events, holidays, weather and activities take place during the month. Then sharpen your focus. Don’t try to include too many ideas into one piece of art.
Calendar art, generally, needs to be large and bold with bright colors. People usually view a wall calendar from several feet away. So the images need to pop out at them.
Be creative
After selecting the theme, students need to put on the creative cap — especially if they’ve decided to depict a major holiday for their month. How many times have we seen a St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun and a pot of gold or fireworks over a fair?
Try to think of something you have never seen before. Looking through family photos of holidays and gatherings might help you. Take ideas further by doing a lot of “what ifs” when it comes to composition, perspectives and angles. For this year’s calendar, for instance, our fourth grade winner drew a bird’s nest. But instead of being on the ground looking up, he put himself in the bird’s view, looking down on the nest and the ground.
This invites the viewer into the artwork by giving them unusual viewpoints. Art judges like that.
Winning works are those that strongly incorporate all three judging criteria: theme, creativity and artistic merit. Many times over the years, though, judges will be split between a work that is creative yet has minor flaws in the way it’s drawn, and a work that is drawn very nicely but is something that’s been done many times before. Our judges usually have given the first place to the student who has shown more imagination.
Fill the page
After brainstorming to find a subject that fits the assigned monthly theme for the grade division you’re entering, start putting those ideas to paper or canvas.
Please do not use ruled notebook paper for your artwork. While we don’t expect all entries to come in on quality art board or canvas, everyone can find blank paper that’s at least letter size for their work. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just neat and uncreased. Do not mat, mount or laminate the finished art.
Also, while not all students have the same background or abilities when it comes to art, there are a few things everyone can do to improve the art they submit. We suggest students fill the entire page with their work. White space usually isn’t too interesting in artwork, so don’t ignore the background of your subject matter.
Do lots of doodles, then sketches of your idea first. Then push yourself to improve it for the final work. Don’t be satisfied with something you complete in one 15-minute sitting.
Follow the rules
Another thing all students should be able to do equally is follow the rules. All the rules are printed on the back cover this month. A few specific rules need to be highlighted.
Originality is always a key point in any contest. We ask that basically everything — all sketching, lines, shading, and coloring — comes from the student whose name is on the artwork. If an art instructor wants to show a student how to add highlights or shading to a figure the student has painted, the instructor should demonstrate on another painting or piece of paper, not on the original piece of art the student is going to submit.
Tracing pictures placed below or projected onto the paper, using stencils, and coloring outlines drawn by a parent or a teacher are not allowed.
Students can turn to other sources for inspiration and details, but their artwork should not be a re-creation of the source. Students can look at photos of quarterbacks to see how their bodies are positioned when throwing a pass, for example, but don’t enter a drawing of a photo of Peyton Manning copied straight from a Sports Illustrated cover.
Look at pictures of bald eagles to see details, for example, but don’t copy the one with an eagle and a full moon from our cover a couple of years ago.
Look around, do your best
Some advice for all students is to simply look around. Look at magazines and books and Web pages with famous photographs and paintings by the great masters. Young students probably won’t understand composition techniques these artists and photographers used. But the more great images you see, the more you may pick up on. The more images that sink into your memory, the bigger palette of ideas and experiences you can draw from in creating your own drawings and paintings.
Finally, be patient with your work and do your best. Keep trying, even if you have never won. Just like in baseball, each spring brings a new season of hope. The art contest deadline is the day before spring, March 19. Good luck to all and have fun!
Here's a link to the complete set of rules and information.
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 1/27/2010
Number of Views: 109
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