The 2019 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are accepting submissions to the competition. Students can simply create an account at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards web page and send their works online.

After students create their work they may upload it to their scholastic awards account. Then they must print their submission forms and have a parent and teacher sign it. After the signature, the student must mail them to an affiliate partner in their local area or upload the signed form to their scholastic awards account.

Any student ages 13 and up in grades 7-12 are eligible to partake in the Scholastic Awards. Students may participate in different categories such as painting, photography, novel writing, poetry, short story, etc.

The judging of students’ works is done fully without the knowledge of the artists or writers identity. Students may freely express themselves through their work and explore all topics they wish to do.

The Scholastic Awards are looking for originality something that is purely unique in its own way. They want something that no other person can think of that changes the way people may perceive art in its rawest form.

Participating in the Scholastic Awards can also reward students with the chance of getting scholarships. For example, receiving awards like the Gold Key will automatically categorize your work into the national-level for recognition. This will look astounding on one’s resume and is something colleges will look for to praise.

One of the earlier participants in the awards was a student at Greenwood, Keiko Nishijima, who is currently a senior. Through her experience with the event, she explains that  “The deadline is usually December 14 so I signed up a couple weeks ahead of time… like you’d have to go on the website and everything but it’s a pretty easy process.”

When choosing her preferred category Keiko chose to do digital art specifically. She was asked which one of her own work was she most proud of and replied, ” I’d say the best one was when I won first place for digital art I guess…it’s just a piece of a character I’ve been working on.”

Participating in the awards helped Keiko really open her eyes to what everyone else in Kentucky was doing and because it was not only her since her friends also joined in as well. She says, ” It was interesting seeing how they placed…”

Since it was not Keiko’s first time competing in competitions she didn’t really have trouble submitting her own artwork. She states, “I’ve done a lot of competitions before so it wasn’t like anything too brand new but I think what helps is that you don’t really see the judges faces…. you just gotta have a lot of confidence, not too much!” She means to tell that anyone can freely submit their work without worrying.

When asked what she really liked about participating in the Arts and Writing Scholastic Awards she says that ” It was exciting to see where I would place, it’s just nice to see how the entire like state of Kentucky basically is doing and like the categories that you really care about… and then digital art since it was fairly new and not many people approach it.”

Receiving the news that she had won first place for the digital art category had made her quite surprised but really happy. She was grateful to win among-st other artists who had worked as passionate alongside her.

Hopefully more students will continue to participate in the in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.