Three Cape Coral High School students won the first ArtFest Chalk Street Painting High School Art Competition last Saturday by taking home the Best of Show award for their burrowing owl drawing.
Senior Santiago Yori, sophomore Killian Muollo and sophomore Kelly Kim designed and drew a burrowing owl for the competition, which was done in a 6-by-6 square on Jackson Street in downtown Fort Myers on Feb. 5.
Art teacher Marguerite Husebye said ArtFest provided her students with the supplies that they needed for the competition, along with holding a workshop for them the night before the event with two ArtFest artists who taught them how to work with pastels.
Muollo said they started thinking about what they wanted to draw in class before the competition. The three students compiled their designs and ideas, along with using Photoshop to create their final picture for the competition.
Husebye said the students learned how to deal with a real life situation last Saturday when they could not get their picture to print for the event. She explained that they ended up using a picture from their Facebook page on their phone to duplicate the picture on the asphalt.
“The worked really well together,” she said.
Yori explained that they taped off the area that they were using before they began drawing a chalk line to grid out the picture on the asphalt.
The students finished their drawing in about six hours, which Yori said did not feel like it was that long.
“At the end it came out really nice,” he said.
Muollo said it was “kind of nice to have our work pay off.”
The trio of students each took away a new experience from last Saturday.
Kim explained that she learned how to work with asphalt when drawing with chalk by making the chalk colors look more vibrant once it was drawn on the ground.
Yori and Muollo each said that they learned how to blend the colors while creating their burrowing owl picture.
Husebye said Yori and Muollo also participated in a chalk event that was held at the Burroughs home over Christmas break.
Yori took different sections of the sidewalk and drew winter scenes and Santa Claus and Muollo drew a scene from “Nightmare Before Christmas,” Christmas ornaments and a snowman.
Cypress Lake Center for the Arts took home second place, North Fort Myers Center for the Arts received third place and South Fort Myers High School took home fourth place for the ArtFest Chalk Street Painting High School Art Competition. Each school entered three-member teams that worked from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. last Saturday.