Westford Academy reveals 2016 art calendar
November 16, 2015
After hours spent perfecting their black-and-white pencil drawings, all the students of full-year art classes, such as Advanced Art Honors, were given the chance to create a drawing for the Westford Academy Calendar of 2016. There are 105 intricate drawings displayed in the flag lobby, and out of those, the faculty and staff voted on their top 14 choices.
The senior winners of the calendar were Katherine Long, Emily Underhill, Christian Colomb, Faye Yang, Jasmine Gutbrod, Grace Liao and Kate Shaughnessey. The junior winners include Joseph Underhill, Meghan Donohue, Aidan Donaher, Helen Copp, Janice Kim, Megan Beatty, and Carolyn Hitelman.
After the final drawings are chosen each year, photographs of the drawings are sent to be published. The art students and art club members then sell calendars at the annual Holiday Bazaar to friends and family members. The money raised goes to art club and funds the yearly trip to New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The cover artist, Long, drew upon her friend’s experiences to create her masterpiece.
“I wanted to shade the veins on a horse and [senior Jillian Nelson] was available for a photo shoot,” said Long.
Colomb created a drawing of the town common. He wanted his drawing to be unique, so he decided to base his picture off of Westford at night during Christmas time.
“I figured, to really represent Westford, I’d take a picture of the town common because it’s so iconic for the town […] the town center at Christmas,” said Colomb.
Yang, another winner, drew a picture of a sign near the Westford Town Center. She believes that her skills have definitely developed over time. According to Yang, though she found it hard to make all her measurements exact, she was completely caught off guard and excited when she was chosen.
One of the other winners, Gutbrod, drew a picture of her little brother drinking from a hose in her backyard.
“I wanted to draw something that was interesting and meaningful to me,” said Gutbrod. “There’s a certain pride that comes with finishing something that took you a long time, and that feeling would have stayed regardless of whether I got into the calendar or not.”
Kelly Fitzsimmons, the art club advisor, noticed how some of her students who have also won have gradually developed artistically over the time she has known them.
“As the years go on, people tend to pick things that are a little more figurative. They start to figure out what they connect to in Westford and then start to draw things that are more personally related to their identity, which is really neat,” she said.
