Blue Ribbon’s are not easily acquired, only the best get one. Summer Settlemyer, a Wortham ISD student, must be one of the best then.
Summer brought home a blue ribbon in pencil drawing at the Heart of Texas art contest.
When asked if she expected to win she responded, “I didn’t expect to win best of show in Wortham, much less win in state.”
Aside from the initial shock she felt at winning, she also was excited, proud and mixture of emotions.
Entering a large contest is not something Summer says she would typically do, but she definitely made the right decision with this one.
Summer prefers a cartoon style over a realistic one, even if her winning piece is a realistic one.
The picture she entered is a colored pencil grid of her adolescent kingsnake, Sweeny Todd.
She explains in detail the difficult nature of coloring a black and white snake when use of the color black is forbidden.
The black scales are layered shades of indigo, blue, Tuscan red, and dark/burnt umber mixed till until Summer, “saw a void of a color.”
The white scales have silvers, grays, yellows, whites, off whites and a very light layer of indigo blue, and the eyes have white with a hint of yellows and greens.
This was accomplished with a mixture of colored pencil brands, “I used anything I could to get the look I wanted,” she explains.
The main parts of the art took her three months to accomplish, and had to have parts scraped away with a sharpened exacto knife.
She wants art to always be a part of her future, even has goals of attending art in schools to advance her skills.
“I hope to continue to have art by my side for whatever the future holds for me,” Summer says.
With your skills and a blue ribbon, Summer seems to be well on her way to accomplishing just that.
