“FILM”ELENA AZOST

GRAND HAVEN HIGH SCHOOL – GRADE 12

“WARM AND COOL”Ismael Aguilera Balcazar

Holland High School – Grade 9 My artwork was a class assignment. We had to make self-portrait using oil pastels. At first I thought it was going to be difficult because oil pastels were a bit too messy for me to use. As I was working on my project, I always got to a point where I felt like I was done, but my teacher told me that I still needed something more on my portrait. To him, something was always missing. It took me a while to realize what he was talking about. It needed more than just color. It needed something that would stand out, so that’s when I just started to scratch away at it. After much thought, I ended up creating something I really liked, and was proud of.

“UNTITLED”Erica Bauman

Jenison High School – Grade 12 This piece was an assignment for my Studio Art class. We had to wrap an animal with an open mouth. I chose to wrap this cheetah because I loved his ferociousness. To me, the weaving pattern kind of suppresses this and makes the cheetah seem harmless. The weaving pattern was challenging and monotonous, but the result was satisfying.

“WOMAN AND CHILD”Elize Boersema

Spring Lake High School – Grade 12

I chose this piece of artwork by Jonene Ficklin, and replicated it in colored pencil because I was truly inspired by the story of the mother in this picture. In Mali, Africa this woman was banished and humiliated because she was unable to conceive, but thanks to a humanitarian foundation and medical team, she was treated and after three years had her first child. She was no longer seen as a burden to her culture. This piece took me about a month to complete and I enjoyed recreating it and sharing the story behind it with others.

“HANDS”Haile Bos

Zeeland High School West – Grade 11 I’ve never been good at math. I was taught to count on my fingers in 1st grade. This worked most of the time, until we started adding and subtracting numbers more than 10. This became a problem for me and my classmates, sometimes we would borrow each other’s fingers, but that was always a hassle. When my teacher explained realism to us being a real thing, but having unreal characteristics, I thought of things that would make my life, along with others, easier. What if my hand had hands? I could surely do my math homework with ease now! Or could I? Counting may be easy, but how do I go about holding my pencil?

“PASTELS”MADELINE CIOFU

GRAND HAVEN HIGH SCHOOL – GRADE 12

“HONEY JARS”Mackenzie Craymer

Zeeland High School East – Grade 12 The purpose of this piece was to experience what it would be like to be an artist for hire in illustration. First, we had to choose a book we had read with art pictures. Then we searched for vivid pictures that came to mind as we read the book. We had to take that imagery from our mind and place it on the canvas the book I chose for this project was “The Secret Life of Bees.” I remembered a scene in which they were in the honey house and looked at the shelves of honey jars in the windows. So, I incorporated that scene, as well as another with a bee and honey comb. It was painted in oil paint on canvas.

“ABSTRACT APPLES”Trent James

Allendale High School – Grade 11 This painting was a five part color scheme project of a piece of small fabric our art teacher assigned. I chose a piece of apple fabric that I didn’t really want to paint but do to the small selection I went ahead and chose the piece. During the process of painting the project, most of the time it went without any major issues except for time. Due to the time limit I had to quickly finish the project as soon as I could. There are some small details that I wish that I had the time to fix up but those beans are cold now. In the end I was quite satisfied with the result even though I wish I had more time with it.

“PEACOCK GROVE”KARISSA KEMME

ALLENDALE HIGH SCHOOL – GRADE 9 

For this work piece I chose the peacock and such, because I grew loving the birds beautiful coloring. I normally tend to show color and vibrancy in my work, giving it more excitement.

“BLACK AND WHITE SHADED INSECT”Joshua Hill

Jenison High School – Grade 10 This was a shading assignment for my Intro to Art class. I chose the insect because of all the different opportunities for shading in the patterns.

“FLOWER POWER”Stephanie Howard

Coopersville High School – Grade 11 My piece “Flower Power” is about technology and nature. We forget how important our planet is and what it does for us. Nature is a beautiful thing and we need to appreciate it more. Technology and nature need to work together for true progress for our future.

“Giving Thanks”Shelby Lacy

West Ottawa High School – Grade 12

“FACES”TRENTON LACY

SAUGATUCK HIGH SCHOOL – GRADE 10 This project was a very rewarding project that I was able to accomplish because the end result was so lavish. I had some difficult parts in this journey but I was able to overcome them. I really enjoyed doing this drawing. I started by using the technique of contour drawing to draw the people. This was very hard due to not being able to look at the paper while drawing the people. This by far was the most difficult part of the project. After I got the people on the board, I designed and colored everything. When the coloring was completed, I outlined everything with black marker to let everything in the piece stand out. The next step was to cover the piece with black ink. After it was dry, I used a sharp tool to scratch the ink off where I wanted the color to be shown. After this was completed the piece was done. The project helped me learn to focus on detail especially when I was contour drawing. Overall, this project turned out very nice. I hope people will notice the hard work that was put into this piece.

“MANDY”Katelyn Mulder

Zeeland High School East – Grade 10 

The inspiration for this piece was a photograph I had taken of my 9 month-old puppy.

“ROOSTER”Paige Paul

Spring Lake High School – Grade 12

“REVOLVING PLANETS”Chadd Pfahler

Coopersville High School – Grade 12 

There aren’t many things that are as calming or relaxing as fishing. Especially fly fishing. There’s really nothing quite like hiking a couple miles into the woods and arriving at a slow moving stream, where there are no troubles and nothing to worry about, except for where your next cast will be. Time ceases to exist. Above, you see what seem to be a million mayflies soaring over the river like an insect highway. They cloud the sky and almost block what little sunlight is left as the day is nearing an end. Soon the ‘hatch’ is over and the mayfly’s short life ends as it falls into the stream and floats down the river. As the moon makes its appearance so do the quiet splash from the brown trout feeding. Then, you cast your mayfly lure upstream onto the water, and just hope a big one latches on . . .

“LOVE LETTERS”Emily Patten

Allendale High School – Grade 10 My piece of art was an assignment for an art class I had taken. My inspiration for my piece was my boyfriend Scott Whitby and my relationship. We’ve been together for a year and a half and I couldn’t be happier.

“WONDERLAND”Grace MacMasterCTC – Grade 12

I entitle this piece “Wonderland” because of the whimsical characteristics it contains. I used several different line weights to add depth and variety. Nature is also a theme that runs through it because it incorporates the sun, moon, lightning, trees, flowers, mountains, and animals. There are four houses that emphasize the importance of the home.

“SHADES OF FACE”Stephen Pols

Careerline Tech Center – Grade 12 I wanted to re-invent the Andy Warhol “era”. Most of my intentions were to make a collage of one of my drawings. My inspirations would have to be Andy Warhol and Jehan Choo.  The story is, I was supposed to be doing a different project, but I got bored and started doodling, then got distracted and colored them on Photoshop, and then pieced them together in a fashion that best balances the color.

“GIRLS IN THE GARDEN”Nora Reed

Spring Lake High School – Grade 9 Girl’s in the Garden was an impressionism project in which we were supposed to combine two famous oil pastel drawings and create one piece. I chose to use the two young girls from Renoir’s “Two Girls in the Meadow” and place them in Claude Monet’s “The Garden in Flower.”

“RAUCHVERBOT”Katie Schnobel

West Ottawa High School North – Grade 12

My piece “Rauchverbot”, meaning the prohibition of smoking, was inspired by an article in a German newspaper that I received while traveling to Germany this past summer as an exchange student. The article explained a new policy regarding the ban of smoking in public places in areas of southern Germany. I was shocked at this due to the fact that I had witnessed more people smoking in Germany than imaginable. When my art Teacher assigned a project which included a reactive self-portrait, I was ready to respond to the article I had read, through my artwork. I was not only amazed at the number of people I saw smoking in Germany, but also the number of public places available for smokers, including airports! I support the prohibition of smoking in public areas of Germany, as smoking can lead to many health complications and even death. If there is one thing America has over Germany, it is our public policies regarding smoke-free areas.

“CAT WITH GREEN EYES”Tiffany Sikora

Grand Haven High School – Grade 11 The intent of my painting was to show viewers that beauty is all around them. An average house cat contains beauty, just like many other things that people often overlook in their daily lives. I want my painting to cause people to slow down sometimes, and be grateful for this beautiful world full of amazing things.

“SELF PORTRAIT”Ethan Stahlnecker

Hudsonville Freshman Campus – Grade 9

“PATH TO HEAVEN”Lillian Tath

Holland High School - Grade 10 This is my first true oil pastel piece. Since I’ve never attempted a landscape with this medium before, it was like taking a dive into the unknown. Half the time I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but in the end I managed to pull it together with encouragement from my art teacher. It truly was a great experience.

“MYSTERIOUS LADY”Alexandria Vos

Hudsonville High School – Grade 12 I wanted to show through an illustration that emotions can be provoked. It’s one of my fondest aspects of art.

“TAG”Brenton Wehrmeyer

West Ottawa High School – Grade 10 The assignment for this project was a spray stencil of a photo of ourselves. So I started with a photo of me holding a spray can and then created the stencil. The stencil actually broke many times, so I used different color prints to fill in the negative space and spots where the stencil broke. This gave it more of a streetcar or graffiti look.

“IF ONE DOOR OPENS”Jenna White

Hudsonville High School – Grade 10 For the final project in my digital photography class at Hudsonville High school, I was inspired by the Rascal Flaats song, “My Wish,” hearing the lyrics “and if one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window.” On my way downtown, I thought to myself how appropriate it would be to take pictures of unique doors. As I took the photos, I thought about the people that walked through these doors and wondered if there was a window of opportunity on the other side

“Illusive”Eliza Zahm

Coopersville High School – Grade 11

In this artwork, titled Illusive, my piece symbolized the difference in one’s state of mind. While some thoughts and ideas fall away, others spiral into your conscious mind. I created this piece simply by playing with texture and color, and by creating a focal point. Though this piece is non-objective, I feel that it symbolizes all the difference and diversity in the world through my use of color.

“Untitled”James Broe

Saugatuck High School – Grade 12