BY KASEY CHARRON
Laura Obermeyer has won an honorable mention in the 2017 Scholastic Art Competition, in which middle and high school students enter their best work for review.
The incredibly realistic graphite drawing, titled “Snowmass Rodeo,” is based on her original photograph.

“Part of what makes this piece special is that it is based off my other art,” Laura explains. “It was a photo I shot at the Snowmass Rodeo during a summer I got to spend back home in Colorado, and the horse’s expression caught me.”
Although Laura began the piece under the guidance of now retired art teacher Renee Hughes at the end of her junior year, art teacher Jessica Stifel can be credited for encouraging Laura to submit the piece. Laura’s own self ambition and patience, however, is what makes her drawing such a success.
“I decided to do this piece to challenge myself, to employ all the techniques I had developed and to take a stronger approach to a subject I thought I knew well,” Laura expains about her process.  “It took me months of working on it and avoiding it, slowly developing into the piece it is now, one I still don’t view as entirely finished.”
Despite being unfinished in the artist’s eyes, receiving an honorable mention in the competition is a difficult feat. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, founded in 1923, are the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the visual and literary arts. The program has an impressive legacy of being the first to acknowledge creative talent and is today’s largest source of scholarships for creative teens.