Twenty-eight high school seniors from South Florida and beyond vied Saturday in the sixth annual competition for an undergraduate scholarship to Digital Media Arts College in Boca Raton.
Although the $70,000 scholarship was being awarded for a bachelor's degree in graphic design or computer animation, the judges were looking for a mastery of the basics. They also wanted to see how creative and "Dr. Seussian" students could be.
"We're not looking for digital work," said program coordinator David Matthews. "We got down to the bare essentials."
When the results were in, school officials announced the scholarship winner was Samantha Blair, 17, a student at Seminole Ridge High School in Loxahatchee who began taking art classes two years ago and had approached the competition in a relaxed manner.
"I had the mindset that what's done is done. It's either going to happen or not happen," she said, "I know I just had lots of fun. When I got the news? I'm still in a daze.
"Exponentially, my talent increased," she said, "It was pretty awesome."
Students had two hours to draw their own creations inspired byDr. Seuss' fantastic, magical world and another two hours to sketch still-life objects.
Dr. Seuss was chosen because of the recent release of "The Lorax" movie inspired by his book and in commemoration of the 108th anniversary this month of the author's birthday.
Art students sat at their easels in a silent room ? save for the rubbing of pencils across paper as still-life figures were shaded to show their dimensions. Some competitors wore earbuds and allowed their own beats to drown out the silence.
The still-life objects: apples, vases of varying sizes and shapes, orchids and assorted knick-knacks. Judges honed in on composition, technique and students' visual judgments.
Samantha Blair said she focused on an apple and its surrounding objects. As for her Dr. Seuss-inspired work, it was a self-portrait of her cartoonish self donning a lion's mane in the midst of a forest of trees with eyes, she said.
Nervous parents sat in the room watching their young artists sketch what they hoped would be artwork valued at $70,000 ? good enough to get them into the 300-student school on the full-ride scholarship.
LaQuanda Lane beamed when talking about her son Tyrone James Lane, 18, who has been drawing since he was a toddler.
Tyrone, a student at Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School of the Arts, has already developed a story line for a video game and helped illustrate a book called "The Bread of Life," his mother said.
"This is his passion. This is what he wants to do," she said, "There's not a day that goes by that he does not do any drawings. This is his dream, and he's so worthy of it."
epesantes@tribune.com or 561-243-6602 or Twitter @epesantes
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