Westlake Word

The annual Chalk Art Competition at Westlake is a fun after school competition where kids compete to win candy and even some money based on the artistic displays. Students have to decorate a 5-by-5 square using chalk as the medium. Each year there is a different theme to create within two hours, and this year, the focus was “Into the Wild.”

 

The competition started with about 9 different teams who met after school on Wednesday, October 18. Many of the kids started their outlines for their chalk art during lunch because they believed that they would not have enough time to finish their drawing in the allotted two hours.

 

Seeing the creations, and being able to capture them through a lens, from start to finish is so fun!

 

Once participants had their basic outline complete in either white or black, they had to begin to add color.

 

Alicia McCarvill and Faith Lynch decided not do an outline but go straight into color; their picture ended up looking great and had a real cartoony feel to it. The trick is for artists to use all different techniques to create their masterpieces.

 

Katelyn Jamie and Hillary Avila decided to use towels to blend their colors while other kids decided to use their hands to blend. Some other groups chose to use water to blend the colors together.

 

Ava Zadrima decided not to blend her colors at all but instead to make it look like the lion was composed of all of these different colors; she also put different colored animals inside of the mane of her lion drawing.

 

Many people who were leaving clubs or heading to a sports game came to look at the drawings, astonished by the artistic talent.

 

Nearing the end of the competition, artists add their final details to make the pictures amazing, which leaves the judging difficult.

 

When the time was officially up, the judges critiqued each picture to find the beauty in all. Everyone gathered together on the front steps of the school where they announced the top three artworks.

 

Caroline Mooney took third place by creating a girl heading into the woods with a backpack on her back. In second place, Ava Zadrima drew a beautiful and colorful lion with other animals hidden in the mane.

 

First prize was awarded to Katelyn Jamie for her amazing drawing of a lion with a bunch of roads leading to it.

 

Although there were three winners, all of these students who competed are very talented and displayed amazing work at Westlake’s Chalk Art Competition.