Water Spring middle-schooler takes top art award

The Florida Art Education Association held its annual student art assessment and selected to two Orange County students for the highest honor, the Award of Excellence.

Shirley Zhou, a sixth-grader at Water Spring Middle School, took home one of the top awards in this statewide competition. Her teachers, Jamie Ruiz and John Duckworth, submitted some of Zhou’s best pieces of work to be assessed by a group of Florida art teachers.

Ruiz said the requirements are rigorous. Duckworth called Zhou “crazy talented.”

Zhou was recognized for two of her pieces of art. “Cheerful Day,” a colored-pencil piece, depicts a colorful scene of her favorite Sanrio character, Pochacco, as a helium balloon in a parade through New York City. “Crow’s Ace” is a pencil drawing of two crows “on an ace poker card with each of their top halves connected together,” Zhou said. One crow is dark, and the other is light, and the differing shades form a sharp contrast, she said.

“I am very grateful to my teacher for helping me submit these competition applications,” Zhou said.

Zhou’s talents as an artist extend beyond pencil drawings. She also has created many paintings of subjects such as water lilies, birds, turtles and jellyfish. In her last year of elementary school, she painted an otter, her school’s mascot, and gifted it to her teacher.

Art is her favorite subject, she said.

“Art can express some of my ideas, and I’m happy in the process,” Zhou said. “Also, I like the outcome of my work.”

The artist started learning how to sketch when she was 9. That coupled with her love of Japanese anime led her to create some spectacular pieces of artwork. She said she learned to draw by following the cartoons.

Zhou hopes to continue improving her skills and hopes to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design after graduating high school. As for a career, she would be happy in anything having to do with art.

“I like drawing comics, and I hope to create some characters that I like,” she said. “I also like playing online games, and I hope to get into animation in the future.”