CLINTON, Md. — Saint John The Evangelist School student Abigail Martin is the proud winner of Artsonia’s Artist of the Week contest, a voting competition held on Artsonia.com, the world’s largest collection of student art portfolios exhibiting over 100 million pieces of student art.
Martin’s winning piece of art is below:
Martin received more than 500 online votes for her winning art depicting a Japanese Pagoda.
“We were given examples of what we could do for our pagoda, and I decided that I wanted to put two of my favorite examples together,” Martin said. “The creation process was very unique since for the painting, you just made a bunch of strokes and messed around with the paint to get the specific shade of black you wanted. Overall, I really liked making the clouds. It was really satisfying to just move your brush and see how well the art came out.”
When asked how she felt when she found out she won Artist of the Week, Martin said, “I felt very excited and grateful that I was selected as Artist of the Week. To be the first one in my school to ever win the award and be the only one nominated in my class made it even more special. I feel more confident now in my skills as an artist and hope to continue creating expressive and vibrant pieces I enjoy making.”
Martin’s teacher, Sharon Wilson has been teaching art for more than 20 years. “I absolutely love seeing the kids enjoying art. Seeing them create something they love, or use a new material, or discover that they could do something that they didn’t think they could is amazing,” Wilson said.
Wilson is one of the thousands of art teachers who use Artsonia to showcase their student art, manage the art room, crowdsource lesson plans, and fundraise for their classrooms. Artsonia lets family and friends of student artists create and purchase custom keepsakes from the student art and then gives back 20 percent of all revenue to the local art classroom.
“Artsonia has been wonderful in my classroom. We have many military families in our school and many families with relatives that are not nearby. Having Artsonia as a way for students to share their work with their loved ones is awesome,” Wilson said.
Artsonia developed Artist of the Week 15 years ago to encourage teachers to submit student artwork and engage the school and community to vote on and recognize students for their creative achievements. Every week, Artsonia selects 12 random submissions in each of four different age groups (PreK-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12) from artwork submitted the previous week. Voting is open to the public for several days before the winner is announced.
“When someone else outside of the art room notices students’ efforts and recognizes that they did a great job, that makes me so happy for them,” Wilson said. “I tell them all the time what I like about their work and what I am proud of, but hearing an outside voice notice it means so much to them.”
Blick Art Materials generously donates a $100 gift certificate to the winning school and an individual $50 gift certificate to the student artist.
“Our mission at Artsonia is to bring communities together to celebrate children’s artistic expressions,” said Jim Meyers, CEO, and co-founder of the company. “Artist of the Week is a perfect way to get local schools, families, and friends involved in the process of creating, recognizing, and cherishing student art.”
For more information, visit artsonia.com.
About Artsonia
Artsonia is the world’s largest online collection of student art and a destination for thousands of art educators in over 100 countries worldwide, curating more than 100 million pieces of student art. Artsonia works with teachers to create online school galleries and individual digital student art portfolios. Parents and relatives can view the art online, leave comments, and order keepsakes featuring the artwork. As part of its mission, Artsonia donates 20 percent of merchandise revenue directly back to local classrooms. Since 2000, it has donated more than $15 million.
A 2022 Common Sense Education top pick for comprehensive resources for arts education, Artsonia inspires students and promotes the sharing of art with its weekly Artist of the Week campaign and online gift shop — all while helping to fund local school art programs.
To learn more, visit artsonia.com.
