Kaysinger Conference Junior High students artfully bring buildings, landscapes to life

Dozens of area students converged on the Missouri State Fairgrounds on Friday morning to bring the buildings and landscape to life through art.

The junior high students from eight area schools, each chosen by a teacher, were participating in the annual Kaysinger Conference Junior High Art Conference.  The young artists were asked to find a subject and create a piece of art using one of seven medias.

Each teacher was allowed to bring 14 students. The students had two hours to finish before having them judged by State Fair Community College students. The winners received ribbons and trophies.

Some students sat hunched over large pieces of paper with serious looks on their faces as they studied the building, tree or landscape in front of them. Others took a more relaxed approach by laying on their stomachs, shoes kicked off and ankles crossed with their papers spread in front of them. The students worked alone or in small groups.

Smithton eighth grader Katelyn Arnold chose to work alone. The 13-year-old sat on a bench, holding her paper on her lap and gripping a pencil and ruler as she drew the Home Economics building.

“This building was the closest thing to catch my eye,” she said.

Arnold was serious about her work as she carefully eyed the building and raised the ruler to measure the angles. She said she planned to add every tile and brick before using pastels to complete the drawing.

“I love art because it gives me a chance to express myself,” she said.

Garrett Strange, a Sacred Heart seventh-grader, took a more relaxed approach to his art. Strange, 12, sat near a friend to draw the railroad car. Strange said he planned to use ink and didn’t plan to add the dangling chains or wooden plaques found on the railroad car.

Brock Nolting chose to use watercolors to create a landscape found in the Highway Gardens. The 12-year-old Stover seventh-grader said he was enjoying the experience and his chosen media.

“I like the way watercolors blend in and flow together,” he said. “I enjoy art and I’m having fun.”

Garrett Goetze, 12, who worked near his classmate Nolting, chose pens and markers to recreate a fountain.
“It (the fountain) looked nice,” Goetze said, “and it looked like something I could draw.”

Green Ridge student Axton Harding sat away from his classmates and decided to use colored pencils to draw the log cabin located on the fairgrounds. He said he chose pencils for their ease of use.

“Oil pastels are too messy and they take up too much room,” he said. “I wanted to draw thin.”

Harding, 13, said art is only a hobby but he was enjoying drawing the cabin.

“It’s pretty cool to draw this (cabin) instead of just one tree,” he said.

Stover art teacher Craig Halloran said she has been bringing students to the conference for 20 years.  

“This (Kaysinger Conference Junior High Art Contest) is a great thing,” Halloran said, “because it is good exposure for the kids to get to draw from real life.”