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| Kevin Duplessie, one of 30 Maine K-8 students selected to have their artwork published in a book that comes out in June, 2013 displays a sample of his creativity; also pictured is Kevin’s teacher at the Caribou Middle School, Jennifer Michaud. |
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Heading off to his Gifted and Talented art class on Nov. 30, Kevin Duplessie knew that something was up — his teacher had let it slip that there was going to be a surprise and then later recanted, and there was clearly something fishy going on. As Kevin made his way to the school’s second floor, he was pretty sure there was going to be something fun waiting for him in ninth-period art, like a special winter project or an in-class contest.
Instead, Kevin was told that he is among the 30 students, selected from a pool of 867 K-8 students all across Maine, whose artwork will be published in a book come June.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Kevin said, nor did he anticipate the celebratory party thrown in his honor that day. As his friends, teachers and family poured into the classroom for refreshments and much recognition of the teen’s accomplishment, Kevin admitted that he was pretty speechless.
“I didn’t think I was going to win — it was actually pretty cool,” he said.
While the original artwork is kept safe in Augusta until its official showing on Thursday. Dec. 20 at the Maine Discovery Museum, Kevin described how he went about drawing the winning lighthouse scene.
“I haven’t seen a lot of lighthouses, but I wanted to get all the details; I decided to photocopy a couple pictures of the lighthouses so I could see what view and what angle I would prefer to have,” Kevin described. He started by sketching the concept in pencil and then adding color. At one point in the week-long process of creating the art, he wasn’t satisfied with the lighthouse’s position — erasing a big chunk of the piece, he remembers thinking “I’ll just retry it until I it get it right.”
But even when the piece was completed just right, Kevin still didn’t think he’d win the contest.
Despite his doubts, the top-placing lighthouse drawing earned its place in the Maine is ME Student Art Challenge, overseen by the First Lady, Ann M. LePage. The art challenge will be used to create the family-friendly baby journal, titled Love.Read.Learn! and will be published in partnership with the Barbara Bush Foundation. The journal, which is a scrapbook-style booklet that promotes literacy and health to Maine families with newborns will be provided at no cost to the parents.
Contest officials said that selected artists were chosen based on the use of elements and principles of design, engagement of the viewer and competence and skill in the use of the selected medium.
Within the journal’s cover will be Kevin’s featured artwork, a piece which his Gifted and Talented teacher at the Caribou Middle School Beth Alden spoke highly of.
“It was outstanding,” she said. “Kevin has a great ability to see detail, he understands perspective and proportion in drawing, he has a good eye for design and he’s passionate about it.”
In October, Kevin and the other art class students created pieces around something they thought represented Maine for the contest.
“The students were all excited for [Kevin] because they participated in the contest as well, so they knew just how important it was,” Alden said. “And he would have been happy for them if someone else had been selected.”
While Kevin will be a published artist come summer, he says it’s not going to change the way he looks at his drawings.
“I think it’s still just fun, because art’s just art,” he said.
