Two students, Carlos Fernandez (9) and Jessica Babyak (11), advanced to the State Visual Art Scholastic Event Feb. 22.

Both from Elizabeth Atherton’s class, Fernandez and Babyak used different mediums when creating their pieces. Fernandez created a painting, and Babyak created a ceramic teapot.

Babyak took inspiration from peacocks, using bright colors in her work.

“I wanted it to look like an abstract piece of work, and then the second element to it that you would notice is that it is a teapot,” Babyak said.

The creation of her ceramic sculpture took her a total of five weeks, but was “definitely worth it.”

Fernandez made a painting inspired by the story of Alice in Wonderland.

“I used acrylic paint, watercolors, watercolor varnish, clay, and other synthetic moss to make the piece come to life,” Fernandez said.

A majority of Fernandez’s work on the piece was done six hours before the competition. “I barely got any sleep that night. I stayed up the whole time to make sure it was perfect,” Fernandez said.

Participants created a piece of artwork that expressed themselves and were then interviewed about by judges. Their pieces were then ranked either 1, 2, 3, or 4. Afterwards, all pieces that were ranked as 4s were placed in an auditorium to then be judged again.

The competition was based on how well the contestants could follow the rules, making sure that each piece fit the requirements. At the state level, the judging will be more subjective, based more on which pieces the judges find to be the most aesthetically pleasing.