Homework really does pay off, as some first-year graphic design students found out. The students won approximately $1,800 in total this year after participating in a national contest open to anyone in Canada under the age of 18.
This is the second year Conestoga College students have won awards in the Karat Aquarell art contest and Mars Lumograph sketching contest.
An awards ceremony took place March 7 in the graphic design wing at Doon campus.
Students took home five out of six top prizes this year. In the Aquarell contest Conestoga students won first, second, third and multiple awards of merit. In the Mars Lumograph contest students won second, third and awards of merit.
Gail Manning, advertising manager with Staedtler, a leading pencil and writing utensil distributor, said Conestoga professor Vince Sowa had his entire class enter the contest.
“His class is awesome!”
Last year students took home six out of six prizes.
This year top prizes went to Darlene Khowphachangsi who won first, Brent Cherry who won second and Maureen Cowan Magee who won third in the Aquarell contest. Honourable mentions also went to Marco Aguilar Jr., Greg Muhlbock and Jeanine Eby.
In the Lumograph black and white contest, second place went to James Bell and third place went to Darlene Khowphachangsi. Honourable mentions went to Greg Muhlbock, Hailey Drury, Jennifer Boeryers and Jacqui Rhyno.
Sowa said entering the contest is part of a class assignment. Students spent a week working on the assignment but also had two or three other projects on the go.
“Students work from their own photography. They have to take their own picture and work from it, using the same colours to create their masterpiece.”
This is the third year the contest was held for watercolour and the second year for pencil drawings.
Judging was done in Toronto by Peter Crighton, a renowned Canadian contemporary artist.
Points were awarded for creativity, technical merit and real world application.
Top prize was $500, second place was $300 and third place was $200. The top three runners-up received $50 each and an award of merit.
About 100 non-professional artists from across the country entered the contest.
The first-place winner’s artwork is reproduced as a colour ad in Applied Arts magazine and Grafika magazine based out of Quebec. The second-place winner gets to have his or her artwork on a limited edition Staedtler sketchpad or watercolour pad and distributed as a bonus on 2,000 sets of Aquarell watercolour pencils and 2,000 sets of Lumograph sketching pencils this year.
“In the next few weeks all of the winning artwork will be posted on the website,” said Manning.
Sowa said the faculty is very excited when the students win.
“It’s great to see this happen again,” said Sowa. “It shows the quality of first-year students.”
Originally published in SPOKE 2008/3/17 by FRANCA MAIO and KAYLA GRANT
