The Art Contest

Mary Colman is 8 years old. She lives in Canton, a Boston suburb, with her parents and 13 year old brother Michael. She goes to 3rd grade in her town school. Since she lives very close by, she usually walks to school, whenever the weather is good.

One day, as she reached school, she went to room 106 and her teacher, Ms. Drup said, “Hi Mary, do pages 64 and 65 in your math journal.” “OK. Thanks”, said Mary. She went over to her desk and took out her math journal. That day’s lesson was on multiplication. She is very good at math. All the problems seemed very easy. She finished all her work in 5 minutes. She then double checked and waited for the other kids to finish.
“Now kids,” Ms.Drup said. “Let’s correct the pages we did. Jessica, please tell me what 9x12 is.”
“Sure. It is 108,” said Jessica.
“Good work! Marcus, what is 10x10?” asked Ms. Drup.
“Um-Um...”
“Ring”
“Lunchtime!” yelled the kids.

At lunch, Mary sat next to her friends, Sabrina and Brianna. Her friend Olivia sat across from her. Mary’s mom packed her a cheese-burger, an apple, and a chocolate chip cookie. They all talked about what they were going to do for the weekend. After lunch, they went out to recess for 15 minutes and played on the swings. The 4 friends were swinging as high as the sky and they all loved that experience. The students then came back inside for their reading time. Ms.Drup read chapter 8 of Ramona’s World. When the children were going home, Mary saw a sign on the wall. It said:

Art Contest.
We accept any type of artwork.
Theme is NATURE.
Send in your artwork by March 27, 2011.

Mary was so excited! She loves art. This would be the first ever opportunity to show her art skills. She ran home and told her mom about it. Her mom asked her to think about what kind of paints and colors she wanted to use. Mary decided to use watercolors. She took out a 17inch x11inch sized paper. She started painting trees and leaves when her brother, Michael, asked her, “Hey Mary. What are you doing?”
“Just, trying to do something for the art show.”
“OK. See ya!” Michael left Mary alone so she could focus on her work.
Mary continued drawing grass, birds, flowers, rocks, mountains, hills and valleys.
She made a few attempts before she finalized what picture she wanted to submit for the contest. She showed her rough work to her mom, who suggested a few changes here and there. She then made a final copy and painted the picture with bright beautiful watercolors. The next morning, she gave the artwork to the principal, Mrs. Oster. “Thanks Mary. Bye!” she said.

Mary was very happy that she could submit a piece of her own for the art contest. The next day was the assembly to see who won the contest. Mrs. Oster got on stage. She cleared her throat and began, “Hello children! Our art contest is a big success. Several of you have participated and submitted excellent pieces of your imagination on nature. We had a panel of judges who went over each and every piece of art work. They had a tough time to choose the winners. In my opinion, each one of you is a winner. You took the time and effort to come up with such masterpieces. But we had to choose only 3 winners. And I will give out their names now. The Third place goes to Patrick Maguire. Please give a huge round of applause.” There was a lot of clapping from the audience.
“Now,” continued Mrs. Oster. “The Second place goes to Brandon Sico. Another round of applause, please.”
Again there was lot of clapping after which, the audience went silent to hear the first place winner. Mrs. Oster paused for a moment and announced, “The First place winner’s work was very neat, simple, and the illustration was very clear. All the elements of nature were excellently captured with the right colors. It was an awesome scenery to look at. And now…I present the first place winner…Mary Colman!!!”
There was a thunderous applause from the audience and Mary could not believe what she had just heard. She ran up to the stage to get her award. The panel of judges congratulated her. She thanked all of them and waved to the audience before getting down, to hug her family and friends. They were all very happy for her.

This was the best moment of her life! This day and event was a motivation and inspiration to do many more good pieces of art work. She would never ever forget that day. She wanted to be an artist in life and wanted to take more art classes to improve her skills.
Whenever she found some free time, she would just pick up a paper and think of something to draw.