A disastrous art contest with a twist
I particpated in an inter-school competition and was not expecting that THAT would happen.
Hello there!
If you are new to Harshini writes, welcome! You are just in time for a good story.
This post is going to be an interesting one. It’s about an event that happened more than half a decade ago. Yet, I still remember it like it was yesterday.
That day, my homeroom teacher announced that an inter-school drawing competition would be held in a few days. (That means students from different schools will also participate).
As a student who was known as the art kid of the class, you know I'm gonna participate in that competition.
A student from a different class entered our classroom to collect the names of the participants in her ruled notebook. And I was the only one from my class who signed up.
The topic for the competition was “hygiene”. I went home and told my mom and dad about the competition. They weren’t surprised, but I could tell that they were looking forward to knowing who would win.
I searched the internet for ideas on what to draw about hygiene. I spent a few minutes observing each picture that I liked.
I decided on what I was going to draw and started watching TV. I didn't practice drawing for the competition, because I failed to understand that sketching is a better practice than just looking at pictures. Spoiler alert: but, this wasn’t why I messed up on the day of the competition.
A few days later, the competition has arrived. The first class hour ended and my teacher called everyone who signed up for the drawing competition. Which is… just me.
She introduced me to a student from a higher class, her name is- uh… Let's call her “Cathy” (that's not her real name). The teacher said that Cathy was going to be my ‘partner’ for the competition.
Cathy will only accompany me for the drawing competition and we are making separate drawings to submit. we were not working on the same piece.
I'm not sure if the other participants were assigned to a partner, maybe the teacher just thought it would be better if I went with a partner because I was a very timid and quiet kid back then.
We all formed a line with the teacher at the front of the line, left the school, and walked for about fifteen minutes until we reached the auditorium.
There were people of all ages, kids, and high schoolers wearing different uniforms. There were adults, teachers, and headmasters. It was a noisy and crowded place and it made me nervous.
Like all the other participants, Cathy and I brought drawing supplies from home. She bought supplies that are suited for colored pencil drawing and I brought supplies that are suited for acrylic painting.
The examiner of the drawing competition took us to the upper floor and told us to sit on the floor and start drawing. I don't exactly remember how much time they gave us, maybe around two hours...?
When we started sketching, we heard people giving speeches on the ground floor (that's where the stage is).
We could hear what was happening down- on the stage. The reason for that is that our floor was more like a big balcony, we could see the below floor if we stood up.
The teachers and headmasters were giving speeches, the students danced, and the theater kids roleplayed dramas and performed on the stage.
Of course, we couldn't see the performances because we had to sit and focus on our drawings.
My plan was to draw a family- a girl, a boy, a dad, and a mom all cleaning their house together.
I was sketching and I got curious. so, I took a peek at what the others were drawing.
Cathy was drawing a very neat and rendered drawing using colored pencils. She drew some big circles. One circle had a drawing of a person brushing his teeth, another circle had a drawing of a person washing his face, and… you get the idea.
Below each circle, she wrote a few lines explaining what she drew, the acts of self-hygiene. Her drawing was so good, but, I wondered why she included text in her drawing.
I looked at the other participants' drawings and most of them didn’t use paint, they also wrote text descriptions along with their drawings- like a school project.
looking at others’ drawings, I thought I was being the weird one, it made me wonder if adding a text description was a given. But, adding text didn’t seem like it would suit my theme. so I continued with what I initially planned to draw.
There was no time to overthink, we were running out of time. I finished sketching and I started to paint the characters in my drawing. By that time, Cathy was halfway finished with her drawing.
I was almost finished with painting the background and the characters. all that is left is to add details. So far so good-
OH CRAP! I FREAKING SPILLED THE ORANGE PAINT OVER MY PAINTING!!
I accidentally knocked over the orange paint bottle and it covered about 15% of my painting.
I panicked, I was freaking out, Cathy noticed that I was in trouble and lent me a piece of paper, and we hurriedly wiped the orange paint that spilled on my drawing and the floor.
Cathy said “Oh no, now you've ruined it…”
I was very sad that it happened. I tried to fix it. The spill covered the bottom part of the page so I painted the “floor” part of my painting with the dreaded orange.
It didn't work. We were running out of time and I gloomily drew the happy little faces of the characters in my drawing. The examiner said that only a few minutes were left to submit. so, I drew the rest of the painting as fast as I could. I know I'm not going to win but I didn't want to submit it unfinished either. The examiner started collecting the drawings and I was the last to submit my artwork.
We were told to stand by and they started arranging chairs. We all sat on the chairs and watched the stage from above.
The teacher came and asked us if we did well. I just sadly shook my head and Cathy told the teacher that I ruined my artwork.
We watched the theater kids and people giving speeches on the stage. I was extremely tired, and gloomy. I had a hard time paying attention to what was happening around me.
It felt like the gravity got ten times stronger. My head felt heavy and I wanted to teleport to space, hug my knees, and drift away.
(P.S. I didn’t feel like this just because I spilled paint, by the way. of course, I was sad that I messed up, but I felt like this because I was really exhausted.)
The stage performances were over and they started to announce the competition winners. I knew I was not going to be one of the winners.
They started with announcing the 5th place winner and went down to the 1st place winner.
When they announced the 3rd place winner, “Harshini…” they said. That's my name! “from ___ school” they said. That's my school! Wait, did I win!? Cathy and our teacher looked at me with a surprised Pikachu face.
“From class five!” they said. Wait so I didn't win…? I was in class seven at that time.
Of course, that's to be expected. A younger girl with the same name and school as me ran to the stage and claimed her prize.
They announced the 2nd place winner and it wasn’t Cathy. when they were about to announce the 1st place winner. I was pretty sure it was going to be Cathy.
“Harshini…” they said. Another Harshini?
“from___ school”
How many Harshinis are in my school??
“from class seven!” they said.
So… I won?? I was stunned! I just froze in my place. Cathy and our teacher were like, “Go, go, go! Why are you just standing there? They are calling YOU!” I rushed through the crowded stairs, rushed through the audience, stepped on the stage and the headmaster granted me a medal. “congrats” he said.
It felt like a dream! I can't believe I won! Whaaat?
I went back to my seat, our teacher congratulated me and Cathy looked at me dumbfounded. Oh, the look on her face! It was priceless.
I went home and told my mom and dad about this whole disastrous- yet surprising event. In the end, no one who heard this story looked at the drawing that I submitted. Heck, even I couldn’t see my drawing after I submitted it. But I vividly remember how it looked. only me and Cathy know what an amateurish painting that was.
The moral of the story: you never know when your creation or which one of your creations will be a hit. keep doing your thing.
That’s it for today’s newsletter. If you liked this post, I hope you can let me know by leaving a quick like, comment, or share this story with others.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨
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