Scholarship Award Ceremony Photo by Dustie Meads

Today I had the wonderful honor of awarding two very deserving senior high school students with hefty $6,000.00 each art scholarship to help them with in their 4-year art education in college.  The scholarships are given annually by the local art club that I belong to which is the Village Art Club.  This was my 2nd year as a part of this committee that interviewed the applicants and encouraged each to give some sort of a presentation.  The committee, headed by Dustie Meads, was extremely pleased to meet such outstanding aspiring art students!  They all averaged A’s and B’s and in the Honor Society.

For some reason the two recipients still managed to stand out even among a batch of outstanding students!  How they won us over were the quality of art they showed, their skill level, their attitude and their grades showed a sense of consistency.  We also casually asked for their sketch books.  The ones that stand out (for some reason) have VERY IMPRESSIVE sketchbooks with endless pages full of their ideas etc.  These two young people are off to a wonderful start; both have been accepted in their college choices!  And in order for them to keep receiving a scholarship check from us (which eventually total 6k in 4 years), they have to maintain 2.6 GPA and have to make annual presentations at an art club meeting.  I sure wish these bright-eyed very excited students the best that the industry can offer! I hope our screening method has given them a good introductory taste of what life will be like.  I look forward to seeing them again and their progress 🙂

Meanwhile, Erika the former scholarship recipient and college grad painted by her sink HAHAHAHA Yes, I feel funny sending those kids to college and here I am painting a 4″x6″ painting by the kitchen sink.  But I wanted to seize the couple hours for painting time and still get some gratification.

Here is the dinky little finished product behind the model, and some medium and extra large other finished products hanging on the other wall.  I really wish I didn’t enjoy oils as much as watercolors.  I end up not painting because I get so trapped and burn some brain wires due to all that conflict!  I did do an oil self portrait for the DPW but I’ll show it after I also do a watercolor.